RWBY: Colors Edition
by Color Me Berserk
Summary: AU. Adjusted timeline, Lore, World Building and character personalities/backstories. Details in Authors notes. Includes OOC because personality changes, OC's to fill in blank spots and for timeline expansions, piss poor writing, and GLORIOUSLY BIG AUTHORS NOTES! Changed rating to M because boy do i like to cuss!
1. One Small Favor

**[PATCH NOTES 1.01: Consolidated Authors Notes. Dialogue and Syntax edits. Lengthened conversations with Ozpin.]**

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 **Name changes: Ruby Rose to Rose Xiao Long. Adam Taurus to Adam Belladonna. Rose is Yangs full sister. Adam is Blakes younger brother.**

 **Timeline changes: Fall of Beacon is in team RWBY's 3rd year. Their will be 2 Vytal festivals in year 1 and year 3. This is too allow me to expand on the characters over a longer period of time, as well as introduce concepts in classes for the cast to exececute during big moments.**

 **Currently the basic plan is Year 1 will be team RWBY trying to catch Roman Tortchwick. Year 2 will be RWBY fighting the White Fang. With Year 3 being when all the arcs come to a head and combine. Gives more time to develope villains and allow Blakes guilt over the white fang to build up.**

 **Characters: Most if not all the cast will have altered and expanded backstories and their personalities have been adjusted accordingly. Their will also be quite a few Original Characters in order to introduce more lore and most importantly to buff up the number of teachers at Beacon since I will actually be showing classes.**

 **Personalities: Rose isn't very cheery. More focused on being strong and dislikes having to rely on others. Yang is more cheery in lieu of Rose, but also has a more pronounced temper. Blake is similar to her original, with mostly just backstory being adjusted to better fit her actions, she is more talkative however. Weiss is entirely different. She will be played more in line with a rebellious billionaires daughter. Which i felt goes more in line with becoming a Hunter to escape her family.**

 **Lore: To put it simply, the Great War wasn't very important in the main series other than a reason for a tournament. I will be including a lot more ramifications for the war, and (hurhurhur) remnants of it that are still causing problems. The Relics are also never given a good enough (or at least in my opinion interesting enough) reason for them being a major plot point, so I have both given them a more interesting reason for Salem wanting them (which i wont tell because spoilers) and an actual concrete use and effect on the world as is even when they aren't held by someone.**

 **Misc: Ages adjusted. All first year students who were 17 are now 19. Rose is 16. Adam is 18.**

 **Magic: Dust will be adjusted to have more concrete scientific uses and limitations. Aura has been expanded allowing for higher power caps of elite Hunters. The background for Ozpin remains about the same. Silver Eyes have been reworked but for the most part function similarly.**

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Volume 1 Chapter 1: One Small Favor

* * *

Rose Xiao Long enjoyed reading her weapon magazines.

Of course, she wasn't planning on buying them, after all she had subscriptions to just about every weapon magazine in Vale (and as as many as she could get her hands on from other countries) and once she got to her home on the island of Patch they would surely be resting prettily on her bed where her father, Taiyang Xiao Long always put her mail.

But she just couldn't wait. She had visited into the dust shop Dust till Dawn intending to merely purchase some more dust ammo for her weapon, but once she saw the stand of magazines in the back corner she immediately got distracted by the wonderful pages filled to the brim with the latest gears and gizmos, blades and bullets, chainsaws and... well you get the idea.

The kindly old shop owner had only smiled at her antics when rushed away the moment her transaction was complete to rifle through the magazines. Rose came by every few weeks and old man had long since gotten used to her obsession with all thing weapons. The few words of conversation the old man had managed to draw out of the small girl were solely centered on questions of new weapons technology and if he would be getting new shipments of, "the goods" as Rose called them.

The girl's weapon craze wasn't the only thing that made her stand out. Rose wore her usual attire, black and red "combat" skirt over black legging and boots with a tight black and red corset all topped off by an almost comically over-sized red cloak that was currently pulled up over her head. Under the hood she had a pair of red and black noise canceling headphones blasting music loud enough to deafen her to the world regardless of the noise cancelling.

All in all it wasn't exactly subtle.

A chime rang through the shop as the front door opened and an even smaller girl walked in accompanied by the soft jangle of chains. Of course, Rose couldn't hear this over the blaring of her music, and even without the music she was far too engrossed in the newest issue of "Swords and Ammo" to give the newcomer any attention.

The new girl, clad from head to toe in layers grey dust colored robes, looked like she just got off the first ship from Vacuo.

* * *

Klara shivered in barely restrained glee as she entered the heavily air-conditioned building.

 _Heavenly! You could make a fortune selling this in Vacuo!_

Her long pure white hair was tied back in a ponytail that itself was shoved down into her sun-bleached poncho. Her skin was pale and slightly reddened, especially on the tops of her cheeks and her nose, as if she was just on the verge of coming down with sunburn. She stood at a puny 4 foot 2 inches tall, and the only part of her that did not quite match her childlike appearance was her eyes.

While she looked for all intents and purposes like a small child, no older than 11 or 12, her sickly reddish-pink eyes contained a cold sharpness that cut through the room, as if daring something or someone to match her gaze.

So, all in all, she looked like a child coming down from a temper tantrum. Or perhaps coming down with the flu.

That or severe constipation.

After a moment standing in the doorway enjoying the cool breeze of the magical AC she shook herself off causing a soft cloud of dust and another rattle of chains before walking to the store counter.

She poked her head over the top of the counter, just barely able to get her chin over the top and waved at the old shop owner before smiling and asking in her soft quiet voice.

"Heyo geezer." She paused and waited for a reaction.

The kindly old man in question just smiled down at the cheeky little girl and waved her to go ahead.

Klara poked her tongue into her cheek and pouted at not getting a more entertaining reaction. Last time she had done that the shopkeeper had come over the counter and tried to throw her out. Unfortunately Valean store-owners were a lot less over the top than their Vacuan counter parts.

She shook her head and continued on.

"You wouldn't happen to sell Scrolls would you? This seems to be the only shop open this time of night."

Klara knew it was a long shot, after all this was a dust store, not an electronics outlet, but scrolls were teeeechnically powered by dust. Plus, dust shops catered to hunters, the one population most likely to absolutely destroy their scrolls on a regular basis. She bemoaned the fact that scrolls are a necessity for a Hunter operating in Vale. Everyone expected you to have the small devices to be in constant contact. Things were so much simpler in Vacuo where the towers emitting all the data were constantly knocked down by Wyrms or blanketed by storms.

Mostly she just hated the noises they made when people called them. It's as if every ringtone the damned things had was specifically designed to drill into her ears and drive her mad.

To her immense kind of almost not quite pleasure, the so far quiet old man nodded slowly and rested his weathered "veiny old geezer hands" on the glass counter.

"Yes we do little missy, what kind you lookin' for?"

Klara shrugged causing another minor cacophony of chains. She didn't even know what the brands of scrolls were. Let alone which one would be better.

"Not a clue, haven't owned one in years. how much does the standard model for hunters cost?"

The old man narrowed his eyes and stared at the little girl.

"Well girl the cheapest model that hunters use costs about 2000 Lien." He reached slowly under the counter and brought up a small white box and set it on the counter.

"And the most expensive?" She asked, tilting her head curiously.

"Well those go for about 50,000 Lien."

The girl let out a low whistle. That was quite the chunk of money for just a radio computer thingamabob. You could buy a car for that much. Or pay a few months rent. For the first time in years Klara was glad she didn't have many expenses as a Hunter in Vacuo. She knew Hunter's who blew money on crap they didn't need or who drank every penny away leaving them nothing when they actually needed it.

Luckily for Klara, she didn't have a house to store crap, and Vacuan alcohol is dirt cheep. Matching the amount of actual dirt and sand that typically found its way into the drinks.

Klara nodded up at the old man. "Yeah sounds good, I'll take the expensive one." The old mans' eyes widened slight, although you could hardly tell because they were barely open at all, and he returned the box below the counter. He pulled a set of keys from under the counter and pointed to a door in the back wall of the store.

"Just a moment, I have to get it from the back."

A short nod was all he received in return from the girl.

Taking a moment to survey the store she whistled a jangly tune to herself.

 _Boy thing looks so much less... crummy than Vacuo. I'd almost forgotten what shops look like when they aren't coated in dust and sand._

She leaned back and once again took a moment to enjoy the cool air. She closed her eyes and let out a low moan of glorious air conditioning induced ecstasy.

 _It also isn't hot as shit!_

A few short minutes later the old man popped out of the back room and shuffled over. He placed a small rectangular black box that could fit in a hand on the counter. It landed with a solid thump showing its weight despite its small size.

In return, the girl reached into her ponchos top and rooted around for a long moment before yanking out a pair of dark black slates striped with gold on a dangling necklace around her neck.

This of course was her Hunter ID. They were built like military dog tags, only a thousand times more indestructible. Not only did they act as body identification and a less morbid ID, they also could be tied into a Hunters personal accounts as well as their Hunting Records.

She lifted it over her head and handed it to the stunned old man. He stared at it for a long moment before glancing back and forth at the girls face and the tags.

"Now, Wait just a minute here... Klara. This here says you're 42, you can't be a day over 12 at most!"

A growl escaped the girls throat and the sound of rattling chains grew louder. Her soft cherubic face was contorted in an angry grimace as she glared daggers at the old man.

"Now listen here you old geezer." She put her hands on the counter trying her best to look threatening and failing utterly sense she ended up looking more like an adorable pouting child than an irate Hunter. "Just cause somebody's semblance makes them look different doesn't give you the right to be a right prick ya hear?" She gave him a sharp glare that bore into his eyes.

She wasn't technically lying, just not telling the whole truth, her semblance itself didn't cause her appearance, just the overuse of her aura from childhood. Mostly at any rate.

The man continued to stare in suspicion at the girl until he noticed the cracks her palms were leaving in the counters thick shatter proof glass.

"Okay okay missy, don't mean to be rude, just havn'ta make sure no ones trying to pull a fast one." He said quickly, hands raised in surrender.

As quick as the anger came it vanished from her face. She stopped pressing heavily on the counter and instead put her hands behinds her back and smiled cutely up at the old bag. Who wouldn't give in to such an adorable smile!?

"Well thank you, mister, you shop people are so much nicer here than in Vacuo!"

 _Of course, in Vacuo they wouldn't give a damn if someone was using a stolen ID._ She thought with a quiet grumble. Things sure were easier to do when people didn't care about fraud prevention.

The old man quickly scanned the ID in his computer and nodded slowly.

"Okay then, looks like everything's all set, she's yours now."

Small hands reached up to grab the heavy box. It was heavy as it looked, Klara wasn't sure if someone her size would be able to use the thing comfortably if she didn't have aura. She ripped the box apart with wild abandon, sending shards of black cardboard and packing material flying like confetti and yanked out the sleek and stylish scroll inside.

The almighty scroll. A miraculous technology allowing anyone to carry around fully operational personal computer in their pocket. Capable of delivering intelligence updates, mobile banking, games, movies, communication, mission updates, and it's most popular feature...

Porn!

Wunderbar!

"Thanky kindly old timer. Got any newspapers round here?" she said in a faux thick Vacuan accent.

He pointed a thumb over his shoulder to the back corner of the shop.

"Just back right corner, by the magazines. You can buy one now if you know you want one."

She nodded and he swiped her card again before handing it back. She smiled politely in return to his wishing her a good night and followed the wall to the rack of magazines and various newspapers.

She stepped lightly around the red clad girl who stood over half a foot taller than her and sieved through a stack of the _Vale Times_.

 _Huh. Didn't expect anyone else to be here today._

She glanced up at the girls reading material. Sword Fancy? Who the hell read that other than old retired Hunters with no legs or something? She looked from the pages to the girls face and almost jumped out of her poncho in surprise.

Silver eyes stared out of a familiar face.

 _Oh Summer... I'm so sorry._

She opened her mouth to say something to the girl but immediately slammed her mouth shut and shook her head. Nothing good would come of talking to the girl. Best to just walk away and act like she never saw her. She quickly grabbed a random newspaper from the stack and rushed away from the red girl. As she passed by the counter she waved the paper over her shoulder to let the old man which one she took.

"Good choice kid."

 _I'm gunna kill him._ She grumbled angrily and stalked out of the shop. Her growl became louder as she bumbled shoulders with a orange haired man in a ridiculous all white outfit.

Well, she used her shoulder, he mostly used his ribs and hip.

The man in question rubbed his side where her heavy chain shrouded body bumped his and grimaced, "Jeeze kid watch where you're going, you made of bricks or something?"

She flipped him the bird over her shoulder and walked away without looking back.

* * *

Rose shivered in a combination of nerves and the cold seeping into her from the metal chair she was sitting on. She had been forcibly sat down in the uncomfortable metal chair in the police stations interrogation room by Glynda Goodwitch herself, Hunter extraordinaire. She certainly expected to be questioned after driving off the robbers from the store, but definitely not just stuck in a room by herself and left to wait for hours on end.

 _Maybe they forgot about me. If so I could probably just leave sense I'm just a witness._

The glowering huntress had dragged her by her ear to the station, mumbling about irresponsible kids not thinking before they act, before storming out of the room angrily, riding crop in hand and a myriad of curses tumbling form her mouth.

 _That was almost..._ She checked her scroll. _Two hours ago now_.

"STOP STRUGGLING YOU LITTLE SHIT!" The furious woman's voice rings out as the door is kicked open and the blond Hunter who rescued her earlier stomps in carrying a wiggling grey sack bound in chains.

With a rage filled grunt she heaves the bound figure into the chair next to Rose. "STAY HERE OR I SWEAR ON MY LIFE I WILL SHOVE THOSE CHAINS DOWN YOUR THROAT."

Rose stared wide eyed at the back of the Hunter as she walked out the door and slammed it behind her.

"Heyo!" A light cheery voice came from the mass before a head popped out. "Finally, she's gone."

The newcomer shook her head and sent her now unbound, and thoroughly tangled, long hair flying.

The white-haired ball of chaos smiled sweetly at Rose.

"So, I'm Klara. Wazzup?"

Rose frowned in confusion at the strange girl trying to think of something to say.

White tilted her head and looked thoughtful.

"So you get in trouble for murdering a thug or something? Thought you were pretty light on those goons to be honest. I'm used to bandits getting gibbed or something."

A light-bulb went off in Roses head when she realized where she saw this girl. She had been in the store just before it was robbed. Was she hear as a witness as well? Or was their some other reason?

"No I didn't kill a thug. I just knocked them out."

White nodded enthusiastically and smiled widely up at the curious girl.

"Glnyda drag you here too? She doesn't like me very much."

A nod.

"Well Sunny, their must be a reason than aye? Did you commit any infractions? Collateral damage? Scare someone? Fire ballistic rounds without taking into account what's down range?"

Rose frowned and didn't grace that with a response. She wasn't some dumb kid getting into their first fight, she knew the do's and don'ts of proper Hunter etiquette.

"Give a drug-dealer a blowjob for drugs?"

Rose sputtered and resisted the urge to smack the girl in front of her. If it wasn't for the child obviously being even younger than her she wouldn't have been able to resist giving it a healthy thump over the head.

The puny girl laughed crazily causing her hair to frizz up even more when she shook with mirth. She almost stopped laughing but when she looked up into Roses angry silver eyes she burst back into a hearty laugh.

 _Oh please someone take this lunatic away from me._

After far to much laughter in Roses opinion, the small girl finally stopped laughing and caught her breath. She shook her body causing the chains to rattle noisily.4

"Any chance you could, you know, make yourself useful and unti- GAH!"

The blonde charged back into the room and swung her riding crop at the girl's head, who just barely managed to tuck it back inside the binds in time.

 _I changed my mind. Take away both of these lunatics._

"Well Glynda, I believe you have suitably cowed them."

Rose started as she realized another figure had stepped into the room while she was focused on the two mad women she was sharing the room with. She had to prevent herself from gaping and squeeling like a starstruck child when she realized Ozpin, the headmaster of Beacon Academy was in the same room as her.

The middle aged man held a plate of cookies in one hand, and a mug in the other that steam slowly rose from. Grey hair fell to just above his eyes, and he was dressed in an ensemble of black and green with small, dark, and round glasses resting softly on his nose. Lastly he had a slim silver cane tucked under his arm.

 _Wow, he looks like a hipster._ Rose thought, wisely choosing to keep it to herself.

Klara on the other hand, had no such hesitations.

"Wow Ozy! I didn't know you were colorblind!" the smaller girl shouted and quickly ducked back into her binds to avoid another fierce swipe from Glynda.

Ozpin sighed and took a sip from his cup. "Hello to you too Klara. It has been what, 16 years now?"

The soft sound of fabric rubbing against her hair came from within the mass, which they could only assume was the sound of her nodding, not willing the expose herself to more of Glynda's assaults.

"We will talk in a moment Klara. Glynda, please stop hitting her would you? You are freaking out Miss Xi-"

The man's eyes widened and he leaned in close to stare into Roses eyes, "My, you have silver eyes."

Rose leaned away from the strange man and threw an uncomfortable glance at Glynda looking for help she certainly wouldn't receive.

 _Great. All three of them are weirdos._

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Welp, if they were going to gas her and mutilate her they probably would have already, may as well play along.

"Yes, yes I do."

A soft chuckle came from the bound girl before a riding crop smacked the bundle repeatedly. "Gah! Demon! I said sorry didn't I?! Child abuse!"

The man ignored the other girls angry shrieks choosing instead to sit down across from Rose and set the plate of cookies down in front of her. He took a sip from his mug and fished through his shirt pockets with his free hand.

"Those are for you by the way, ah their it is." He grinned triumphantly at his victory over his pocket clutter and pulled out a scroll.

"Now Ms. Xiao Long, I just have a few questions for you if you don't mind, for starters, where on Remnant did you learn to fight like this?"

Rose looked up from where her eyes were glued to the table. The tablet he held in front of her face showed footage of her fighting off the robbers. A small grainy version of her kicked a thug through a window and punched him in the face over and over again. The rest of the thugs ran out of the small shop and she rushed towards them twirling her scythe backwards to prevent cutting them to pieces. Rose almost gagged when she saw the little past version of herself overextend and lose her balance, almost taking a hit from an idiot thug with a cleaver.

 _Oh crud. Uncle Qrow will kill me if he sees my footwork being so sloppy._

"I am currently attending Signal sir."

The man raised his eyebrows in mock surprise, "And they taught you how to use one of the most dangerous weapons on Remnant?"

"Yes sir. One of the teachers took me under his wing."

Ozpins eyes widened and he spit-takes back into his mug. "Miss Xiao Long, that might be one of the worst jokes I have ever heard!"

Rose smiled at the chuckling man, she never would have thought Ozpin would laugh at such a bad joke.

"I know sir. My sister Yang says it way too much."

Ozpin coughed and thumped his chest to dislodged the inhaled hot chocolate before he could regain his serious composure and continue.

"Now why is an adorable girl such as yourself attending a combat school designed to train warriors?"

Roses face contorted into an angry grimace. Every time anyone found out she wanted to be a Hunter that was the reaction she got. It had taken years of convincing to get her father to allow her to follow in his footsteps like her older sister. Only Uncle Qrow had been on board from the beginning, going so far as to train the young girl in secret while she worked on convincing her dad. It certainly didn't help his strained relationship with his other niece or their dad but he never refused to help.

To say she was disappointing that the great professor Ozpin, the head of the greatest Hunter Academy, seamed to view her the same way would be putting it lightly. She was absolutely livid.

"I'm not some stupid kid. I know the dangers and how hard of a life it is. It took years to convince my father but it's what I want more than anything else in the world."

"My apologize Miss Xiao Long, I didn't intend it to seam like I was disapproving. If anything I support anyone who has the aptitude to become a Hunter regardless."

Roses internal grumbling ground to a halt when the rug got pulled out from it. She nodded sullenly and mumbled an apology. If only her dad saw it that way things would have been a lot easier.

"Well Miss Xiao Long, could you please tell me why you stopped those robbers earlier when it also meant you would place yourself in significant danger?"

His voice lacked any of the previous mirth. To Rose it sounded like he was judging her for something without telling her why. The girl pulled her cloak tighter around herself as if she wanted to disappear under the sudden intense scrutiny.

"I could help. Dad and Qrow always tell me, 'people who have the power to help others have the responsibility to do so', so i just... did. I know it wasn't safe. I'm not very good at fighting people compared to fighting Grimm, but no one else was their so It was up to me Professor Ozpin" She mumbled to the desk.

Ozpin smiled and raised a brow. Glynda however was far too busy glaring daggers at the chained-up girl across the table to pay any attention to the focus of Ozpins interest.

He let out a quiet huff of disappointment at seeing his companion completely uninterested in what he was doing, so he instead looked back to the nervous little Rose.

"I guess that saves me the trouble of asking you if you know who I am. I probably should have expected it now that I think about it. I assume your father and mentor have told you a thing or two about me?"

Rose nodded quickly and looked up at him, for the first time that night since entering that room a warm look of excitement filled her face.

"Yes sir! My dad and Uncle Qrow talk about you all the time!"

Ozpin chuckled and took another small sip from his mug.

"Only good things I hope?"

More vigorous nods sent the girls hair flying.

"Yeah! Their stories about you are so cool! Your cane is so awesome how it goes SHWIING and a blade comes out and you can make bubbles that just BWAAAM and knock things away!"

Ozpin chuckled at the girls excitement and took a slurping sip from his seemingly endless coco supply. Rose looked thoughtful for a moment before blushing furiously in embarrassment when she remembered of the more... colorful stories Uncle Qrow preferred to tell.

"Well... Dad at least only says good things. Uncle Qrow mostly just insults you."

She expected him to be annoyed or at least angry at Qrow, but instead she was surprised to hear him laughing jovially across from her.

"Yes, that does sound like Qrow. So Miss Rose, after seeing the footage of your fight, and almost as importantly, talking to you and your dad, I have one last question I would like to ask you."

Rose hunched in on herself again as the nervousness returned full blast.

"O-Okay sir.. What is it?"

Professor Ozpin leaned back in his chair and took an agonizingly slow sip of his drink before answering. he could practically hear the anxious, nervous thoughts ripping their way through her brain.

"How would you like to go to Beacon this year?"

He most definitely expected her to say yes. Perhaps with some stuttering and mumbling. What he did not expect however, was that she would faint and bash her head on the table.

Thankfully she missed the untouched plate of cookies. He was getting hungry after all.

The loud thud of her face hitting the solid metal table broke Glynda out of her anger induced vigil over the bundle and she looked curiously at the unconscious red girl.

"Ozpin..."

"Yes Glynda?"

"What. Did. You. Do?"

"Why I have no idea what you are talking about."

* * *

Klara was very happy that Ozpin told Glynda to go with Rose under the pretense she needed help getting home in case she fainted again. She really didn't want to deal with her constant interruptions whenever she wanted to say something. Klara had to admit her anger was justified but she certainly didn't expect the calm and collected Glynda Goodwitch to attack her the moment they crossed paths.

Ozpin took another noisy slurp of his coco. He didn't say anything, just waited for the girl to make a move.

A gentle rattling filled the small room as the chains slid over each other and unwrapped the little girl like a Wintersday gift. Klara was revealed from within the tangle of clothing with a massive shit eating grin framed by wild tangles of hair.

She leaned on the table to rest her head on her hands only to find that leaning forward her chin only just barely poked over the table. It completely ruined her attempt to look smug.

 _Curses! Once again my stature has prevented me from looking cool!_

She grumbled under her breath and leaned back in her chair instead, settling for crossing her arms across her chest and glaring at Ozpin instead. Maybe she could distract from her blunder by insulting Ozpin?

"Well Ozymandias. I would say it's good to see you again, but you know my stance on lying."

If Ozpin was surprised at the name she chose for him he certainly didn't show it, simply taking another slow sip before resting his mug on the table and responding.

"Well Klara, I for one am happy to see you are alive. I can think of quite a few people who would love to see you again. One in particular comes to mind."

She couldn't help but frown at that before covering it once more with an annoyed glare. Seeing her friends from school and digging up old memories definitely wasn't what she came back to Vale to do. She had hoped to just get in, do whatever it was she was asked to do, and get out without anyone being the wiser.

The plan was to head back to Vacuo, but after experiencing the holy magic of the centralized air conditioning, she thought she might head to Atlas instead.

"Well Oz.." Her eyes shimmered and shadows of gears wrapped in chains filled her eyes, turning ever so slowly. A minute silently passed while she stared into Ozpin. Whatever she saw only made her chuckle gleefully.

"I gotta say, I'm surprised at how little you have left. I could have sworn your told me you weren't going to spending anymore after you so... politely refused to give me any."

Oz steepled his fingers and sighed. He knew Klara was going to make a nuisance of herself. Best to just let her get it out early. She was like the sand from the country she ran away too. They both got into the little cracks and holes in everything and slowly wore it away until it seized up.

Although unlike sand, Klara was limited by her short attention span.

When it came to Klara annoying Ozpin it probably didn't help that they had basically never agreed on a single thing in the many years they knew each other. Not that they ever actually had much cause to directly fight each other. They simply both held to philosophies that were incompatible. Ozpin believed in keeping things close to the chest and not telling people more than they needed to know, while Klara preferred to yell and scream important top secret information in the middle of crowded cafes.

To put it mildly, they weren't very compatible.

Klara waved a hand wistfully and continued in spite of the lack of reaction.

"Of course, I'm not one to judge, OH WAIT, you bet your ass I am!"

That drew another heavy sigh. Oz just kept doing what he does best, staring mysteriously. Which must be a good strategy, because Klara's temper fizzled and burnt out almost immediately. The sarcastic angry smirk turned back into a bored frown.

It was time for Oz to make his move before she could work herself up again.

"Well Klara, have you gotten it out of your system?"

Klara shrugged in response and slouched back into her chair with a huff. The shadows in her eyes faded away and they returned to their original pale red.

"Yeah just about. So why did you call me in after so long, old man? You made it out to be some kind of emergency."

That was the real reason Klara came back to Vale. A few days ago after getting back to what vaguely resembled civilization in the wastes of Vacuo she received a short message from Ozpin that basically boiled down to, "Find me in Vale, Emergency". He didn't even provide her with any way to contact him, the jerk. But she had promised she would answer his summons when he next asked so despite everything telling her it was a dumb idea she had to go.

Oz smiled, mirroring Klara's earlier evil grin.

"You happen to owe me a favor."

Klara's heart beat thudded in her ears and ice filled her stomach. She had _really_ hoped it would be _anything_ but that. The reason she made herself so difficult to get a hold of in Vacuo in the first place was to prevent Oz from involving her in any of his stupid schemes. They might be for the good of the world, but they rarely ended well for the people doing the heavy lifting.

The survival rate for Ozpins Hunters was about 5% over 10 years. She didn't very much like those odds.

Klara rubbed the back of her head and chuckled nervously. When she spoke, her voice was much higher and squeakier than before, all pretense of trying to sound like a serious adult vanished and she tried her best to lean on her childish charm.

Luckily her terror overpowered her natural sarcasm and arrogance and actually made her look more like a scared little girl.

"Oh really? Strange! But that's no uh... reason to call little old me all the way out here. I'm certain you have... other minions willing to do... whatever it is you want!"

Oz shook his head sadly. If Klara hadn't known him so well she might have actually been fooled into thinking he wasn't actually getting some sick enjoyment out of ruining her life.

"Oh no Klara, I know how important your honor is to you, I cannot bear another second of knowing your debt to me is weighing so heavily on your conscience."

 _That's it. I'm gunna kill him for this._

Klara's skin, which was already a deathly white, literally could not have gotten any paler as she took in what Oz was implying. She couldn't break a promise, so all she could do was give in and do whatever Oz requested of her.

 _Oz you better not have become a senile pervert in your old age._

She grit her teeth and took a long moment to compose herself before gracing him with a response. When she had her emotions back under control she smiled.

"Well Oz, I am certainly thankful that you have returned my honor." She spoke in a too calm voice, all the while cursing the Mistrali scientists over and over in her head.

Oz nodded in return. His faux sad expression instantly morphed into one of happiness. He knew that was Klara's typical response when returning a favor. He didn't know why she said it, and the last time he asked she tried to stab him with a pencil, so he made the wise choice to not comment on it. Aura infused pencils hurt a lot more than normal pencils after all. The sucker had gone through the wall behind him when he dodged out of the way.

The powers of number 2 led is not for the faint of heart.

"I'll make it simple Klara. I want you to be a teacher at my school."

Klara slammed her head into the table.

"My deepest apologize Oz, I seem to have misheard, come again?"

"I want you, Klara, to work under me, Ozpin, at Beacon Academy and to do your utmost to train the students to the best of your abilities."

"I think 'Utmost' and 'to the best of your abilities' kind of say the same point twice." Klara said, voice muffled by the table she had her face pressed against.

"See? Think of how eloquent the next generation of hunters will be with you correcting them!" Oz responded gleefully, "And when you arn't busy correcting unimportant grammar errors, perhaps you will even have the time to show them a thing or two about aura."

Klara groaned and repeatedly bashed her head against the table.

Oz watched her work the stress out of her system until she calmed back down and lay her face on the table in a less... smashing way.

The poor table had a huge dent in it when she finally calmed down. The tiny girl slumped back in her chair looking absolutely defeated with her loose hair hanging in front of her face.

"Why?" She mumbled unseen by Oz, her face now hidden by the fuzzy mountain of hair blocking his view.

What a shame. How was he supposed to be able to enjoy ruining her life is he couldn't even see her crestfallen expressions!?

"It's simple Klara. I think you would do a good job." Oz leaned in and pat her on the head head. "You know I am not doing this simply to spite you. I honestly think you can do a lot of good working for me."

Klara groaned and batted his hand away and swiped the hair out of her face revealing her trademark annoyed frown.

"Well you know I can't decline, but I do have something I need to inform you about first."

"And what could that be."

The diminutive girl hoisted herself back to a proper sitting position from her childish slouch. She sighed unhappily at what she had to say next.

 _Life just refuses to stop being complicated._

"I also owe your girlfriend a favor."

Oz tilted his head and squinted his eyes in suspicion.

"I met her about a decade ago. Apparently, she thought I was a member of your band of grouchy little morons so she sent a few people to kill me." She glared at him weakly. She never did like how sneaky Ozpin could be so getting attacked because of his hidden agendas did nothing to improve her opinion. "After a dozen or so failed attempts she gave up and just contacted me directly. Sent one of those tentacle ball things."

Oz frowned and took a sip of his hot chocolate while Klara continued.

"I can only guarantee that I will not directly cause any harm your students." She paused and sighed. "I cannot, however, say the same thing about you. Also I wont be able to identify any of her agents if I see them, even if I know they might cause harm to the students. At best I could simply teach the little turds how to protect themselves."

She shook her head and chuckled. "Although from what I have heard of Beacons teaching methods since you took over, student safety may not be high on your list of priorities."

Oz must have found that funny, because he laughed softly and smiled down at Klara.

"Well I guess that will have to do. If you don't mind me asking, what did she do to earn your debt?"

Klara drummed her fingers on the table and shrugged.

"She saved Tyrian."

He raised a brow.

"I wouldn't exactly call him saved."

Klara crossed her arms and pouted.

"Yes, but Roan wanted him to be happy, so I went ahead and traded his debt for a new one."

Tyrian was a pain in the ass to deal with. One day he just showed up in front of her with a message from Roan calling on her debt and telling her she needed to look after him. And it sucked so much. He was mopey, depressed all the damn time, and could barely be taken outside without causing a scene. After a week of having him following her around like a sad puppy she was ready to jump off a bridge. If it wasn't for her inability to break a promise and the fact that she just found him to be too pitiful to abandon to some asylum she should have ditched him the first chance she got.

Plus she had found an arcade she could ditch him at in a rundown old resort for a few days at a time. What morons chose to try to set up a resort in the middle of a poisonous wasteland she had no idea.

"You could always just choose not to."

"I am a child of honor Oz. There is no choice involved."

She sounded so worn down and tired that Oz couldn't help but reach over and pat her head.

* * *

 **Welcome to the bottom of the chapter after the first round of edits. For future reference I tend to operate on the "Just keep writing and come back to fix things later" approach. It keeps me from being bogged down. Normally i write in full book format, so i just get to the end of a book and than re-edit the entire thing for consistency, so it will be a tad strange working with this serialized format. I intent to edit chapters in batches of 10 as I make them, and than do a second edit whenever I finish a particular story arc.**

 **Below are the random thoughts and PS's i made when initially posting the chapter. Typically all my PS type things at the end will just be random thoughts and sarcastic comments I thought of while re-watching parts of the show or while checking for obvious grammar mistakes. Anything in [] are my updated thoughts after further writing and edits.**

* * *

 **So, if you have any questions about changes I've made, feel free to ask them. Most questions should be answered in the next few chapters, but I'm sure I'll forget to point out some detail that will drive someone somewhere insane.**

 **Oh. And when it comes to shipping, I am not planning any. Beyond the typical Pyrrha x Jaune, which I will be expanding on since its over 3 years instead of 1. Anything else will just depend on how the characters fall into place as I push them along. Journey before Destination.**

 **PS. Glynda will be teaching a pure combat based class. Port still has Grimm studies. Oobleck still has History. Peach "teaches" weapon customization,. (I actually didn't know Peach was an actual character who is only mentioned once. I always thought she was a community made character :P) And finally Klara will be teaching a class on Aura use she calls "Whatever the hell i feel like talking about 101"**

 **PPS. Where does the airship to Beacon leave from? It cant be from Vale, because Beacon is basically inside of Vale, so its idiotic to use a full airship, and it cant be Patch, because it's small and far too many new students are on the ship.**

 **[^in this story it leaves from Vale as a main thing to shuttle every student at once.]**

 **PPPS. I will not be referring to the kingdoms as kingdoms, because none of them seam to actually have Kings so i will be making it up as i go and just calling them nations in the meantime. Vale, for instance, will be an Oligarchy, which is run by the council.**

 **[^The change from being Kingdoms to not kingdoms will be brought up at some point when discussing the great war]**

 **PPPPS Just realized, Atlas sent an army to Vale, another country, and I am 99% sure is universally an act of war to literally put flying warships over another nations capitol against their will. So i will probably be changing that to make it less stupid. I should probably be writing this stuff down as I think of it.**

 **[^Always felt this was odd. I never felt their was enough difference between the nations for them to actually be separate entities. In my version, Atlas sent an army to Vale in the year 3 Vytal festival because most the hunters from Vale were busy watching the festival that took place it Atlas. I will be making the festival tournament a big get together event for Hunters to see old friends, and the next generation in action.]**


	2. Up in the Air

**[PATCH NOTES 1.01: Adjusted Authors Notes. General edits and corrections. Adjusted descriptions of a few plot points.]**

* * *

 **AN: Short chapter. Would have just been the end of the last one, but that one ended up a bit longer despite not having the Rose V Roman fight. Figured 7k words for the first chapter was already enough, this plus the fight would have put it at about 12k or so, kinda daunting for a introduction.**

* * *

Volume 1 Chapter 2: Up in the Air

* * *

Rose was certainly having an eventful day.

Glynda had taken her home late the night before, or early that morning, and spent a few minutes talking Rose's father while she packed up her things. Rose hadn't quite thought through what leaving to Beacon the next day would entail, because it ended up involving rushing around grabbing everything in her room she thought she might need, almost forgetting her tool kit for cleaning her scythe, and in general absolutely destroying her room.

And just when she thought she could get a breather, and maybe take just a _little_ nap, Professor Goodwitch dragged her back out the door, suitcase in tow.

Several sleepless hours, one bullhead ride, two taxis, and ten panicked minutes trying to find the MASSIVE FRICKING AIRSHIP THE SIZE OF A SMALL MOUNTAIN later. She was finally on her way to Beacon.

And she was absolutely miserable.

The airship was absolutely beautiful. Sleek curves, massive windows and delightfully soft chairs in rows pointed to the windows to provide everyone with a nice view. Unfortunately those chairs were occupied by hundreds of rowdy, smelly, noisy, annoying wannabe Hunters that seemed to be competing to see who could make the most noise.

Rose could feel her headache building already.

Why couldn't they all have just taken short Bullhead trips to Beacon? Sure the chairs sucked and would probably give them all scoliosis, but Rose would take anything over having to sit in close proximity to these morons.

But alas, she was forced to endure a crowded noisy airship on her way to a school filled with people she _knew_ she wasn't going to get along with. After all, she never got along with anyone at Signal Academy, and this wasn't too different, right?

 _At least those morons are stuck in Signal for two more years. Would hate to get put on a team with any of those incompetents._

Rose could only sigh in resigned frustration. She looked down at the city of Vale through the massive floor to ceiling windows. The warm afternoon sun did wonders for the city, it could almost make her forget that just a few hours ago a criminal from that same city had almost killed her.

All because she had been _weak._

She leaned her head against the window and glared down at the city. Glynda had saved her last night. If it wasn't for the grouchy woman, Rose would be a burnt corpse on top of a building. She wouldn't have become a Hunter in training, she would never get the chance to become the strong confident Hunter she dreamed of being since childhood. All she would have amounted to was a fucking worthless corpse to be buried and forgotten.

She took a deep quivering breath and slowly let it out.

 _It's okay. Now I'm on my way to Beacon. It's all up to me now to become a Hunter._

The thought managed to cheer her up slightly. The strongest Hunters came from Beacon, and to her, getting strong enough to stand on her own was the most important thing in the world.

Finally calm and relaxed, she could at last sit back, unwind, listen to some tunes, and enjoy the trip to Beacon.

"Oh I can't believe my _wittle sister_ gets to go to Beacon with me!" a squeal came from right next to Rose's ear, almost making her jump out of her boots. Her sisters' arms wrapped tightly around her chest and lifted her in the air. Her vision blurred when her sister began shaking her crazily almost using her as a bludgeon to hit someone sitting nearby. Luckily he dived underneath the path of her swinging legs.

"Gah! Y-Yang! Need air!"

Yang Xiao Long, her elder sister by 3 years, chuckled and dropped her back on her feet before spinning Rose around to face her.

Rose stared at the blurry form of her sister for a long moment before rubbing her eyes.

"Good morning to you too Yang."

A few eye rubs and head shake later she could make out the familiar shape of her sister. Yang was wearing her usual outfit, that is too say basically the opposite of what Rose chose to wear. Pretty much everything about her was the exact opposite of Rose actually. While Rose had pitch black hair with red tips like her their mother Raven, wore mostly black and red, and covered just about every inch of her skin other than her face with protective layers, Yang went with a _slightly_ different approach.

To start with she inherited their fathers' great height maker her easily tower over her tiny sister, as well as Tai's bright yellow hair that she kept in a massive untamable mane that took up just an ungodly amount of space. Just, way, way too much space. She also got her lilac colored eyes from their father, while Rose got her silver ones from what they could only assume were some _really_ recessive genes or something. Her clothing was also just about the exact opposite of Roses. She had a orange scarf tided loosely around her neck, a earth colored jacket that wouldn't never be able to zip up all the way over a yellow undershirt, with a matching brown belt over her black short shorts.

Although both sisters did wear black combat boots, that was mostly because their Uncle Qrow had taken them shopping for shoes and he refused to buy any clothing that he described as, "ugly flamboyant bullshit".

He shared Roses love for the color black.

Yang couldn't resist squeezing her little sister into another tight hug, this time however with far less shaking. "Sorry sis, I'm just so excited! We finally get to go to Beacon! We've been waiting for this moment our entire lives!"

Rose couldn't help but smile up at her sister. Their personalities couldn't be more different but it was hard not to just feel good around Yang. She just put out a warm energy that got people in the mood to be happy.

Yang released Rose and took a step back.

"You are excited right? You have been working way harder than me for this. Especially since you had to start at Signal later."

Rose simmered at the reminder. Their father had initially forbidden, or as he put it forgotten, to allow her to attend the Combat Academy at the age of eight, the first year you are able too. It took her two more years to convince her father to let her go. If it wasn't for Uncle Qrow tutoring her in her spare time she would have been lucky to get into beacon at nineteen, let alone sixteen.

Yang looked down at her fuming sister. She couldn't help but be worried about Rose. She loved her to death, but for the life of her she just didn't quite understand why she always failed to find the positive side in things.

Rose finally managed to drag her head out of the mire of unpleasant thoughts and shrugged her shoulders a bit. She leaned back with her hands on her waist causing a few pops to come from her back.

"I don't know. I'm getting in three entire years early. And sure, I _know_ I am good enough to go. But that doesn't stop my brain from going crazy about it."

The blonde girl reached out and squeezed her shoulder reassuringly before responding.

"Still scared?"

Rose sighed and nodded.

"Same as usual I guess."

And it was. The ever present, all-encompassing terror that ate at her insides day in and day out for as long as she could remember was no different today. Now she was just a bit nervous on top of that which probably did nothing to help. She didn't know why she felt that way all the time, but for her it was just normal. It wasn't actually until she was already 5 years old when she had asked their father how he dealt with it that she learned everyone doesn't live their live in a constant state of life or death panic inducing terror.

But she didn't want to be weak, so eventually she simply learned to live with it.

Although no matter how calm or relaxed Rose would look, it never quite assuaged Yangs worries. She was a very protective older sister after all.

But back to the important bits.

"So, nervous then?" Yang asked slowly.

Rose stuck out her tongue. "Duh doofus. You know me, I'm terrible with people on good days. Let alone when they are all 3 years older than me and have had far more time to train."

Yang chuckled and ruffled her sisters hair. Rose squawked indignantly and swatted at her sisters hands before trying to reorganize her thoroughly messed hair. Being awake for two days in a row combined with the static from the dry air in the airship combined to make her hair float up from her head like some sort of mad scientist.

"They might have _had_ more time but they probably didn't _use_ more time than you. You spend way too much time training. You would be better with people if you actually went out and exposed yourself to new people more."

Rose ran that sentence through her head a few dozen times in rapid succession before blushing furiously and punching her sister on the arm with enough force to make her wince and rub at the spot.

"Unlike you Yang, I am above "exposing" myself to strangers. You're lucky dad is friends with the constable or you would have been in a lot more trouble."

The blonde maned beauty could only laugh jovially and smack Rose upside her head.

"Hey now let's not say that quite so loud will yah? Unlike you I plan on making plenty of new friends and I don't want to start off on the wrong foot."

That got a genuine chuckle out of Rose much to Yangs enjoyment. Her sister didn't laugh enough so every time she did it made her day.

"But seriously Yang, this isn't like Signal. Most of the other students there are a bunch of idiots. This is _Beacon,_ where the best of the best Hunters come from! I skipped 3 years to get in, and I.. I just don't want people to think I'm special or something. I don't want them to think _anything_ about me! You know how well I handle extra attention and all that..."

Rose leaned against her sister, forehead resting against her chest. They stood silently like that for a minute just being close to one another.

"Don't worry about it Rose. They might look at you and just see a kid, but you are hands down the best at killing Grimm that I have ever seen besides uncle Qrow. Once they see you in action you will have people lining up to be on your team."

She smiled and tilted the red cloaked girls face up so they were looking eye to eye.

"Besides, you _are_ special, you're my sister after all, and I am quite incredible."

Humble too.

Rose laughed happily and pulled Yang into a tight hug. It was a very sweet sisterly moment, and anyone who saw it would surely feel their hearts warm at the sight of the sweet pure love they shared for each other.

And it was immediately ruined by the sound of vomit splattering on the floor.

* * *

 **Welcome to the bottom of the second chapter now that it has received a bit of editing. This one overall didnt have as many additions as the first chapter. The first went from about 5k words to 7k or so, while this one went from about 1800 to 2500. Still a significant jump ratio wise, but not as major when it comes to actually having to write it. Not much to say on this one other than I wish I could have expanded on the airship "scene" to introduce like... a dozen other characters. It is a nice location, and I would have much preferred side characters being introduced in an extended airship scene instead of the Locker area in the show. I might go back and do a complete rewrite of this chapter at some point if i get the motivation to give it a go. As usual, below are my original authors notes and thoughts when writing, and in [] will be updated thoughts.**

* * *

 **AN: And their we go. Technically this is an expansion on the last part of the originals first episode, but I couldn't think of a good way to jump to this locations from Klara talking to Oz, so i just split it off. And since I split this section off, chapter 3 will be when you actually get to see the wrest of the cast.**

 **PS: Poor vomit boy, Rose will never let him live it down.**

 **[Luckily he has three years to make friends instead of like 7 months.]**

 **PPS: I am waiting for the moment where I accidentally call Rose "Ruby" in a chapter. I know one is going to squeak by me eventually, assuming one hasn't already.**

 **[I'm at chapter 11 now, managed to find all the accidental name slips before putting out the chapters so far.]**

 **PPPS: The fear thing is not technically important, but it does tie into the lore i have invented for my story.**

 **[I kinda lied. It's important to Rose's character arc, but not to the overall world plot type thing.]**

 **PPPPS: I have adjusted the design of several characters. Basically Raven looks the same just has red tipped hair, and Summer Rose looks completely different other than the white cloak and Silver Eyes**

 **[So far I'm leaning towards Summer having green hair. Feels more... Summery... hahaha.]**


	3. New Faces

**[PATCH NOTES 1.01: Simple quick edits. Adjusted some character dialogue to make them feel a tad better in general.]**

* * *

 **AN: Not much for me to say. Mostly this just introduces my alternate version of Weiss. Good old rebellious billionaire daughter. I ended up buying a bomber jacket on amazon for way too much money when i was trying to remember what the heck they look like. It's quite comfy.**

* * *

Volume 1 Chapter 3: New Faces

* * *

Far too many minutes later the massive airship finally came to rest at Beacon Academy. The massive doors of the ship slowly opened to reveal the beautiful architecture, wonderful landscaping, and gorgeous fountains to impress the new arrivals.

Which was all promptly ignored as they all just rushed off the airship as fast as possible to get away from the noxious fumes.

Rose fell to her knees just outside of the ship and took great heaping gulps of air. About half the students on the ship had tried to ignore the smell, and the other half chose to hold their breath for the last 10 minutes, and she was among the second group.

"IM SO SORRY GUYS!" A loud pleading voice shouted over the clamoring mob and Rose turned to see a green faced blond boy running out of the ship.

 _He must die._

She jumped to her feet and reached behind her to pull out her weapon when a hand fell on her shoulder.

"Don't get so worked up sis, flying just doesn't sit well with some people."

The red girl spun with a growl and glared at her sister.

"What kind of idiot thinks they have what it takes to be a Hunter if they can't even handle an airship!" She screamed and through her hands over her head. In the distance some of the fleeing students shouted in approval.

Yang shrugged and elbowed her sister in the ribs with a cheeky smile.

"Look at it this way Rose, now you definitely know you are not the least qualified person here!"

Roses mouth froze open in the beginnings of another complaint before she closed it slowly, eyes twinkling thoughtfully.

"You know... you might just be right. Perhaps my expectations were too high for the school after training with Uncle Qrow." She smirked up at her sister, "After all, they let _you_ in, so their standards can't be too high."

Yang laughed loudly and lightly smacked Rose over the head.

"Hey not let's not get carried away lil sis."

Rose grumbled and rubbed the back of her head.

"I feel sorry for anyone on his team though, he's never going to live it down."

"You know now that you said that, you are going to end up on his team, right?"

Rose shrugged and poked her sister in the side.

"Doesn't matter, sense obviously we are going to be on a team, I will just let you deal with him!"

The blond froze and a nervous look appeared on her face. She spun her sister and put an arm around her shoulder.

"You know sis," she said with a thin smile plastered on her face, "Maybe it would be better for you if, you know, you weren't on my team."

Rose looked up at her sister with a confused frown.

"What do you mean? Do you not want to be on my team?"

"No no! Of course it's not that, I just think this may be a good chance for you to, umm, spread your wings and fly!"

"I'm not a bird Yang."

"I know that! Dad and I just think it would be great if you... you know, made some friends while you're here."

"I already have enough friends."

"Oh really? Name a few."

"Well there's you."

"That's one, and I'm your sister so that doesn't count."

"Uncle Qrow."

"Uncle. Doesn't count."

Rose tapped a finger against her chin thoughtfully.

"Zwei! He/s a friend and he's not related!'

"Rose, Zwei is a dog."

"So? Man's best friend."

"Still doesn't count."

"Well.. Ermm.. I uuuh..."

Rose whips her weapon off her back and extends it into its fully scythy glory.

And it was quite the sight. Standing over 6 feet tall eat easily dwarfed her. Its handle was black with ornate little red dragons wrapping up the pole. Half-way up the pole there was a recessed trigger, and the section where the blade met the poll was a cylinder that looked like something out of a rocket engine. And of course, it was also covered in little gears and retractable sections that let to fold and unfold easily.

At least it worked easily now. The first dozen version had a tendency to lock up which on more than one occasion led to Rose having to finish a duel at Signal with a off balanced, twisted bo staff club monstrosity.

She twirled it around her hand and brought it to a rest, blade to the ground, before she leaned onto it and hugged it lovingly.

"I don't need anyone but my beautiful Red Dragon!"

She nuzzled her scythe affectionately, causing Yang to facepalm.

"Rose, it's a scythe. You _need_ to have more friends than your family, a dog, and a scythe."

Roses eyes went wide and she hugged the massive war scythe to her chest.

"But Yaaang! She's not just some boring old scythe! She's a scythe with a _flamethrower!_ A FLAMETHROWER! ITS SO MUCH COOLER!"

"It still isn't a friend Rose, it's an inanimate object."

Rose quickly put her weapon away and grabbed onto Yang. Her lip quivered and her eyes widened and teared up.

Yang shuddered. The puppy dog eyes were in full effect. She only had one choice.

"Sorry Rose, this is for your own good! I'm gunna go say high to some of my friends!"

Yang pulled Roses hood down over her eyes and spun her in a circle before running away into the crowd.

Rose squeaked at the sudden act and fought to regain her balance.

"Yang! You uuuh... you're gone..."

She looked around her and saw the massive airship was already sealed back up and taking off, and most the students were already broken into small groups and walking away to... Somewhere.

 _Wait... where do I GO!?_ _Dorms? Orientation? Do we have dorms? Is orientation today? Are we getting teams now? Tomorrow?_

Her mind went into overdrive as her imagination ran wild with numerous unspeakably horrible things she just _knew_ were going to happen.

"Hello!"

Rose almost jumped out of her boots as a chipper female voice came from behind her. She began to run away only to slam into a stack of containers. The grey boxes went flying everywhere and she tumbled over them before skidding on her face across ground.

"Oh no, are you alright!"

The girl approached Rose and kneeled next to her. Rose only groaned in response and held her face.

 _Maybe if I pretend the fall killed me she will go away._

The mystery girl continued to bombard her with questions, repeatedly asking her if she was alright, and prodding her in the shoulder relentlessly.

"I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to surprise you, you just looked lost, so I thought I would introduce myself."

At that, Rose slowly lifted her head and looked at the source of her annoyance.

The girl in question had long unbound white hair with a finger width pink strip on the right side that frizzed crazily about her head. Skin almost as pale as her hair almost seemed to glow. She wore baggy grey cargo pants tucked into heavy black combat boots. An unbuttoned brown bomber jacket over a blue shirt finished her ensemble.

Rose stared up at the strange girl, caught like a dear in headlights locked onto the girls worried sky-blue eyes.

The girl reached out a hand to Rose, "Hello again, I'm Weiss."

Rose ignored the hand and quickly stood. She leaned over and brushed the dust off her legs, when she noticed her nose was itching.

"AAAH AAAH CHOOO!"

A flash of fire and a puff of smoke burst into existence as the until now unseen red dust that had been floating through the air was ignited by the sudden outburst.

Weiss and Rose stare wide eyed at each other for a moment. Both of their faces were blackened by soot and their hair was blown back comically.

Rose glared angrily at the girl and stomped her foot.

"ARE YOU SOME KIND OF IDIOT!" Rose screams and throws her hands over her head. "HOW DOES SOMEONE WHO CAN'T EVEN KEEP TRACK OF THEIR DAMNED DUST GET INTO BEACON!?"

The white-haired girl shrinks under the verbal assault and opens her mouth to retort before being cut off by Rose.

"DON'T SAY A WORD PRINCESS, NOTHING YOU SAY CAN POSSIBLY MAKE UP FOR YOUR VAST STUPIDITY!"

"It's heiress actually."

Rose paused her onslaught and both girls turned to the source of the voice.

Just off to the side of the pair stood a girl with long black hair and amber eyes holding what looked to be a vial of green dust. She wore a white shirt under a black vest, with matching white shorts and black leggings that went down to black boots.

She also had a very fashionable black bow perched on her head.

Weiss nodded her head and said, "Yes actually. I am Weiss Schnee, it's a pleasure to meet you."

Rose just looked between the two as the black haired one handed over the vial of dust and exchanged pleasantries with the annoying girl.

"Of course, the Schnee Dust Company is mostly known for its shady business practices and mistreatment of its faunus workers these days." The black-haired girl added. The way she said it immediately annoyed Rose for some reason. It was as if the girl felt the need to inform the world about something that Rose really just couldn't care less about.

Plus, Rose really just didn't like it when people acted all self-righteous.

Weiss let out sad sigh and returned the vial to its rightful place in one of the many cases. This was not the first time someone pointed that little fact out to her, and it certainly wouldn't be the last.

"Yes, unfortunately my fathers' methods have all but destroyed any good reputation we had."

Rose sighed internally. She really did not want to stand around listening to these two, but Yang wanted her to talk to people so, talk she would.

Or at least let others talk.

Yeah. Probably that one.

The bow wearing girl, who Rose was almost positive had introduced herself as Blake something or another while she was too busy being annoyed, widened her eyes in surprise at the heiresses dejected acknowledgment of her families' reputation.

Rose wisely decided to continue ignoring the conversation, surely Yang would give her points for effort. Instead she decided to focus on the dust action rapier at the white girl's hip. For the most part it was just a typical rapier, but it had a revolver barrel filled with different types of dust near the handle.

So it looked pretty damn cool in Rose's opinion.

"Nice sword." She mumbled, breaking the monochromed pair out of their heated discussion of just how terrible the SDC was. They both seemed to be trying to outdo each other with tales of the companies' misdeeds and corruptions.

Weiss turned and gave Rose a cheery smile. She was just happy Rose was showing anything other than the heated anger from earlier. She unsheathed her rapier and held it aloft for her to get a better view.

"Yes, it's my baby! Her name is Myrtenaster." She ran a finger down the blade and spun the dust cycler causing a satisfying clicking sound with every movement. "It can hold 6 different dust cartridges in the handle, and if I need to reload them I can just..." She flicked the sword and the revolving cylinder flipped out the side, "Pop them out for easy access!"

Rose stared at the sword, completely entranced. Weiss could scarcely believe this excited girl who was practically drooling over her sword was the same one who was tearing into her just a few minutes ago.

Weiss showed Rose the ins and out of her sword, much to Blakes amusement. She couldn't have imagined she would be seeing a _Schnee_ of all people getting excited over a sword and showing it off to a random stranger.

And she _definitely_ didn't expect her to just accept it when said stranger yelled herself hoarse without so much as defending herself.

Rose was just reaching behind her back to show off Red Dragon to Weiss in return when a blaring noise shot out from unseen speakers.

"ATTENTION PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS, REPORT TO THE AUDITORIUM FOR ORIENTATION."

"I guess that's our queue." Blake said and they walked in the direction the other students disappeared too.

* * *

"Rose! I Saved you a seat!" Yang's shout rang over the mass of dark shapes of people Rose knew were their, but didn't care to focus on. She ignored everyone around her, narrowing in on her sister and zipping over as quick as she could.

"Oh, dust Yang! It was horrible! There was this white idiot named Wise who couldn't keep her dust in her pants, and then I exploded!"

Yang shook her head, "Wow had a breakdown already?"

Rose nodded sadly and fell into her chair.

"There was also someone else named... umm... Blake. I think."

Yang nodded slowly and smiled at her sister.

"Well at least you remember some names this time. You really need to pay more attention to people you know? It's easier to get along with people if you actually listen to what they say instead of zoning out, running away, or, you know, threatening them."

"Actually, it's easiest if they never talk to me at all!"

Rose crossed her arms and pouted petulantly. It would have been an easy day all around if it weren't for other people just insisting on existing.

"Hey we were wondering where you ran off to all of a sudden." Weiss said from behind Rose.

Rose let out a squeal and jumped into her sisters' arms.

"Oh no the idiots back!"

Yang looked between her sister and Weiss.

"Well. I assume you are the person who made my sister explode?"

Weiss sighed and rubbed the back of her head.

"Yeah... You could say that. She tripped over some of my luggage and my dust spilled. And she sneezed and well you probably know the rest."

Yang smiled wide and hugged Rose tight to her chest. She then swung her little sister around in circles, nuzzling her face into hers.

"Oooh my wittle sister has found herself a fwend!"

Rose began to flop like a fish in a vain attempt to escape.

"AAAH! Yang stop! Lemee down! She's not my friend!"

The red girls' frantic struggles finally landed her on her feet and she glared at Weiss in annoyance. Weiss for her part just looked embarrassed and shuffled her feat nervously.

"I'm sorry I just wanted to make it up to you somehow."

Rose poked her cheak with her tongue.

"You really want to make it up to me?"

Weiss nodded.

"Never speak to me again."

Weiss jaw dropped open in shock. She definitely didn't expect such a rebuttal. Rose shifted to the far side of Yang and sat down with a huff before pulling her hood over her head to cover her face.

"Myrtenaster can visit though."

Yang let out a bark of laughter.

* * *

 **Welcome to the bottom of the edited chapter. I didn't do too much of this one yet. I'm still not 100% sure on what exactly i want their personalities to be like, so this one will be getting another hit when i get another 10 chapters further along. As usual, original Authors notes blow, and new thoughts in [].**

* * *

 **AN: Bit of an abrupt ending. But I am a fan of time-skips between chapters combined with embedded flashbacks, and I would like to get better at them, so expect a lot of crudy ones over the course of this as i try to get less crud with them. Basically next chapter will begin with the creation of team RWBY (as in them actually being named it on stage by Oz) than flash back to show the initiation to introduce Blake and her adjusted character.**

 **PS: I didn't originally intend to change Crescent Rose's name, but sense i change Rose's last name to Xiao Long i figured a Dragon weapon name would be better for her. So Hong Long ended up being my name choice, which I'm like... 70% sure means Red Dragon. I could have just done Crescent Dragon, but with the other changes I made to it, this name makes the most sense for now.**

 **[I briefly considered making all her property named after Hannibal Lecter stories, despite that making no sense whatsoever.]**

 **PPS: The change from sniper rifle to flamethrower was for a combination of reasons. Mostly it was because over the course of the show, the sniper rifle part of her scythe is quite useless and weak, almost never doing useful amounts of damage to anything, and i felt using her semblance for short bursts of speed instead of a gun will work better. The flamethrower will still be used for some acceleration, but mostly in big aggressive charges, in fights it will mostly be for setting shit on fire. I also changed it to flamethrower because her last name meaning Dragon, it seamed fitting.**

 **[CoD World at War up in this bitch.]**

 **PPPS: The flamethrower uses red dust, not a liquid like gasoline or napalm. I plan on doing quite a bit to show how the world outside of Hunters, which mostly just kill things, use dust types. And because of some of the changes I've made not all the dust colors are consistent with the show. But for now, the important one is Red, which makes fire most of the time.**

 **[It doesnt help that the show is inconsistent as fuck with the coloring of dust types. So i will probably be adding an entire class devoted to the ins and outs of dust and how to "grind" the powders or something.]**

 **PPPPS: For anyone who cares about this sort of thing, like me, in this story, 1 Lien, will be about 1 Dime in value. So compared to a US Dollar 10 Lien has the buying power of 1 Dollar. So if you wanted context on the pricing of the Scrolls from the first chapter, here you go.**


	4. Lights Out

**[PATCH NOTES 1.01: General Edits. Will eventually rewrite in past tense to match the rest of the story. For now it gets to be unique. Unfortunately I'm terrible at noticing accidental tense changes, and since im planning a while rewrite for this anyway I'm not going to bother fixing them yet.]**

* * *

 **AN: If this chapter seams more poorly written than the other ones (if that's even possible, which it might not be) than blame it on Monster Hunter World. Wrote this sucker during my first successful Rathalos hunt and it turns out dragon slaying and writing do not go hand in hand. Who woulda thunk?**

* * *

Volume 1 Chapter 4: Lights

* * *

Beacons Hall, erm... Ballroom? Uuuh... Big ass room where all the students are currently sleeping for some reason. Is very big. Not like, super big. But yeah. Its good sized. It definitely holds all the students, and the late arrivals certainly don't have to sleep outside.

Those poor, poor late bastards.

Night has long since descended and most of the applicants are slowly falling asleep. Gentle snores echo through the voluminous room, and Yang is definitely not trying her hardest to annoy the shit out of Rose.

Oh no, she would never do that. The annoyance is purely accidental.

"So, Rose, is that the Blake girl?" Yang whispers to her sister. They are both wrapped up in their sleeping bags side by side against the wall. She had declined sleeping among her friends in order to keep her sister company for their first night away from home. Rose is already beginning to regret not telling her to just hang out with her friends.

Rose glances up from her book and follows her sisters' eyes to the far side of the room where the girl in question, who is either Blake or a very good Blake imposter, is curled up in a chair reading a book.

Much like Rose was trying to do before her sister decided to start badgering her.

"Yes, she is Blake. Stop talking to me and go make friends with her instead." Rose says sulkily with a shooing motion towards her sister. Not a chance that Yang is only asking that out of personal interest, she is planning something. And Rose really just wants to relax with a book before falling asleep.

But Yang has other ideas.

She reaches over and jabs Rose in the shoulder with a finger over and over again until the red girl huffs and looks back at her with an annoyed frown.

"I'm just saying, if you blew up at her too, you should apologize as well." Yang whispers. She spent almost an hour after the orientation needling Rose until she finally managed to apologize to Weiss for overreacting and being so rude to her. It wasn't a good apology, mostly mumbled and stiff, but it technically counts.

Roses only response to that is blowing a raspberry at her sister and tucking back into her book.

"It's fine Yang, I didn't even talk to her she just traded weird stories with Wize while I looked at their weapons."

Yang sighs heavily and can't help but correct her sister.

"It's Weiss, not Wize, and are you positive you didn't do anything to upset her?"

"No, Why?"

Yang looks away from her sister and flicks her eyes back up to Blake. She gets just the briefest view of Blake staring at Rose before her amber eyes lock back onto her book.

"Well she keeps staring at you, and she certainly doesn't look happy."

Rose doesn't even bother looking up and just gives an uncaring shrug.

"Good for her."

A soft smack rings out as Yang facepalms. Her sister isn't even pretending to listen to what she is saying anymore. This isn't entirely Roses fault mind you, she mostly just wants to fall asleep, and she finds it's easiest if she keeps reading until her eyes just drift closed naturally. She only got a few short naps throughout the day after not sleeping at all last night, and to make matters worse her caffeine has long since run out.

So it looks like it is up to big sis Yang to prevent Rose from making an enemy!

Yaaaaay!

This is going to go swimmingly.

Luckily unlike Rose, Yang knows how to swim.

This metaphor doing anything for you? No? Okay.

Yang grunts as she forces her way out of the pleasant warmth of her orange sleeping bag and stumbles to her feet. She slowly, ever so carefully, and definitely quietly, makes her way across the room to the reading girl.

She ABSOLUTLY didn't take two steps, trip over a sleeping student, slam face first into a table and knock it over sending bags and peoples junk spilling onto the floor.

Because that would be incredibly stupid.

Stumbling back to her feat in a daze, Yang holds her forehead where she impacted the table and surveys all the other startled applicants looking at her.

"Sorry about that!" She says with a groan and a quick wave.

Now, much more carefully and much less destructively, she makes her way over to the raven-haired girl. Thankfully she manages to tiptoe across the room without another major incident, for all the good it does seeing as everyone was already shocked awake by her first attempt. She could bring a marching band for her second go at it and no one would be particularly bothered.

Well, they wouldn't be woken up by it at least.

By the time Yang finally manages to reach Blake the bow wearing girl is already staring at the blond with a confused frown on her face. So clearly, she already knows how well this is going to go.

"Hiya!" Yang says with a smile and a wave.

Blake stares at her blankly for a few seconds without responding. Looks like it's up to Yang to carry the conversation.

"Well I couldn't help but notice you staring at my sister, and I know she kind of blew up earlier so I wanted to make sure she didn't do anything to upset you and not apologize for it."

Blake really doesn't want to talk, but hey she's at a new place with new people, so she takes a breath and decides to make an effort at being friendly.

Well, as friendly as Blake gets at least.

"No she just yelled at the Schnee before drooling over her weapon."

The blonde chuckles nervously and rubs the back of her head. "Yeah that sounds like her, she's not so good with people but she sure does love the heck out of new weapons."

Blake nods in return and glances back at her book before the blond continues on.

"I'm Yang Xiao Long by the way, and my sister is Rose." She reaches out a hand to the raven-haired girl.

Blake stares at the hand for a moment before reaching out and surrendering her hand to Yangs forceful shake.

"Blake Belladonna, it's a pleasure."

Yang smiles widely. She is quite happy that

"So watcha reading"

Blake flips the book closed and flashes the cover at the excitable girl. The cover is fairly typical for pulp-fantasy, fairly simplistic art with a brown-haired man holding a sword aloft.

"It's about a man with two souls who is part of an ancient society to protect the world from another society who wants to destroy the world for... some sort of reason. They never really explain it."

Yang taps an index finger against her lips and tilts her head thoughtfully.

"I think Rose bought that series actually. I've read it a few times, isn't it supposed to be getting a movie or something? She wouldn't stop talking about it for weeks when they announced it."

Blake nods and smiles warmly, it isn't often she meets someone who actually has any sort of knowledge on the books she reads. Especially among hunter types, they tend to be more into the hole, "Shooting and throwing things around" rather than sitting down for a nice quiet afternoon of reading.

"It's getting a TV show actually."

And that of course leads to Yang and Blake having a quite pleasant conversation about Blakes favorite topic of all, books. Yang isn't exactly a connoisseur of fine literature, or literature in general, but Rose had quite the collection and Yang has long since taken up reading them on occasion when a title caught her eye.

Minutes of hushed discussion come and go as the bond over trashy romance novels until Yang makes a sudden statement out of the blue.

"So, are you a cat faunus or something?"

Blake jumps in surprise and gives a response full of dignity and poise.

And by dignity and poise, I mean she makes a sound like inhaling a frog and choking to death on it before finally coughing it up, gasping for breath, and vomiting out random vaguely word sounding noises.

"I-I how d-did you *cough* I mean why would you *hack* think that?"

Yang squints her eyes and stares at the bow and makes the realization that those arn't ears at all, just a bow.

"Oh, I'm sorry, thought your bow was cat ears for a second there!"

Ever so slowly Blakes frantically beating heart slows down.

"No problem, just caught me by surprise. Think I inhaled my own spit."

That made Yang laugh and she looked back over her shoulder at Rose who was laying on her back holding her book extended in front of her face at arm's length.

Blake has a thought and can't help but ask nervously, "You don't have a problem with faunus do you?"

"Oh no of course I don't!" Yang says with her hands held up, palms out defensively. "I don't have any problem with them. Sure, those White Fang terrorists are deplorable, but I don't hate an entire race because of some bad eggs."

Blake lets out a sigh of relief that turns into a sharp inhale at the blondes next remark.

"Now Rose on the other hand, she isn't as... tactful?" Yang tilts her head in confusion for a second, not seeing Blakes worried look and wide eyes. "I think that's the right word."

"What do you mean?"

"Well it's hard to explain, really it's the type of thing she should explain herself. But she isn't racist per say, she just doesn't feel sorry for people when bad things happen to them. She just sees it as their fault for not stopping it."

"That's... strange."

Yang shrugs. "Yeah, it definitely doesn't help that Patch, where we grew up, was a pretty small town and we lived miles outside of it. She doesn't exactly have much experience with people from different backgrounds, or people at all to be honest."

Blake isn't quite sure how the two sisters could be so different and can't help but ask.

"And you do?"

She nods in response and chuckles.

"Yeah, I made friends in Signal and would visit Vale often enough with them. I didn't have much of a bubble to begin with so I'm pretty open to new people."

She pulls a pair of sunglasses out of thin air and puts them on.

"Plus I own a motorcycle, only cool people own motorcycles."

Blake can't help but let out a snort of laughter, all the awkwardness evaporating away in an instant.

The two go back to talking pleasantly about books, and Yang tells her some interesting stories about growing up on Patch, a town mostly made up of Hunter's. But before long it is time for them to be going to sleep, and they exchange goodbyes and wish each other good luck for the initiation tomorrow.

Yang carefully, and quietly, and not at all clumsily makes her way back to her sister. Rose closes her book at Yangs approach and slides it back into her bag.

"So how'd it go?"

Yang plops down into her sleeping bag and surveys the room. In the far distance she sees the white-haired girl, Weiss, fiddling with her scroll in a chair.

"Good, she's pretty nice once she starts talking. Oh, and she doesn't hate you by the way."

Rose fluffs her pillow and looks absolutely uncaring at the girls' opinion.

"Fun fun fun."

She certainly, sounds thrilled. Yang sighs and twists around to lie on her stomach.

"So enjoying your first slumber party?"

Rose shrugs. "Well it has been less exciting than your stories, and I'm sure dad wouldn't approve of all the boys."

Yang lifts her torso up to get a better look at all the forms laying around the room and gives a comical purr.

"I sure do!"

She falls back into her sleeping bag as Roses pillow hits her in the face.

"Perv."

* * *

 **Once again welcome to the bottom. Not many changes this time, saving most for the rewrite. Not sure when I'll get around to doing it but will probably be sometime around when I hit chapter 20 and go through editing again. Should be a change of pace from editing chapters 11-20. As usual, original Authors notes and thoughts below. New thoughts in []**

* * *

 **AN: Welp. Kinda an odd chapter this time. Didn't notice until i was doing a quick check to see if i called Rose Ruby or forgot to capitalize Yang (it really enjoys being lower case for some reason) that i wrote this chapter in present tense, which i didn't intend to do, but i kind of enjoyed it so hey! Who cares!**

 **[At this point I'm honestly considering making a keybind that searches for all "Yang" and capitalizes the Y for me. I do it so fucking often. I like to blame it on my new keyboard although I'm likely just a moron.]**

 **PS: Yangs reaction is based on my own reaction when first watching the show, I didn't know Blake was wearing a bow for probably 3 episodes or so, i just thought she had her ears in the open haha.**

 **[Chatted with some folks and turned out they had similar reactions. I assume it was because of those stupid Red White Black Yellow trailers that barely have anything to do with the actual show. Trailer Ruby sure was cool.]**

 **PPS: I never gave any explanation for why i made Rose and Yang full sisters instead of half, so i figured I may as well sense its not very obvious. Essentially I'm going to make it so Yang remembers Momma Raven, and wants to find her, but philosophically has nothing in common with her. While Rose never knew her, and doesn't want to meat her because she was perfectly fine with just Tai, Qrow and Yang, but has a lot more similarities to her in terms of world view and overall outlook. I figure this will add an interesting conflict between the sisters later on, and the default story i felt definitely didn't have enough strife between the siblings.**

 **[Raven left about 6 months after Rose's birth. Or about a year after her best friend Summers death. Turned out staring into your dead friends eyes every day was off-putting.]**

 **PPPS: Random things, Gambol Shroud will probably be called Shroud because Gambol feels weird in my mouth. I have weakened the initial strength of all the main cast, so basically they will have room to get stronger over the course of schooling. The idea is they begin pretty good at their respective areas, and by year 3 they are good enough to be full Hunters even though they have another year of schooling since they go to the best school and are some of the best students their.**

 **[I use both names now. Basically as you will see in chapter... 9? I use named the Cleaver Gambol and the Katana Shroud (or would it be a Kodachi? It is quite short.) I might have been the other way around. I'm definitely renaming Adams weapon because Wilt was the name of a shitty Evenescence cover band I heard once.]**

 **PPPPS: This isn't relevant yet, but I need to write it down before i forget about it. In my story Velvets hair will be Purple. I actually forgot what she looked like and thought her hair was wavy, purple, and shoulder length the entire time. Turns out its dark brown. Whoda thunk.**

 **[I noticed while writing that I basically gave her the same hair as Neferpitou from Hunter X Hunter. I assume I watched HXH around when I watched RWBY or something so i have both of the characters logged in my brain together haha. Regardless, purple hair for Velvet!]**


	5. Interlude: Other Tales I

**AN: Something different. This is Salem telling a story. Probably. Who knows.**

* * *

Volume 1 Chapter 4.5 Intermission: Tales I

* * *

A long time ago Remnant was a very different place.

Long before the moon was brought low, before the great sea swept in and drowned the world, things were different.

Thousands of cities from hundreds of nations coated the world, Grimm were but a bad dream that few had any worry for, and fewer still would ever see.

It should have been a time of peace and plenty. With the monsters hiding in the night, humanity should have been free to live long happy lives.

But humans just weren't willing to let each other have a happy ending.

So, they fought as humans so love to do.

They waged wars that blackened the skies and brought the sun down to the earth. And great creations of magic erased entire cities from the face of Remnant.

It was a time of turmoil and death. Every small border war killed more humans than todays Grimm could hope to kill in a year.

And still the humans weren't happy with their capacity for murder and build greater and greater tools of death.

But one day, a small little girl changed everything.

Unlike the great nations, the kings, the queens, the party leaders and God Emperors, she didn't choose to learn the great destructive magics.

Instead, she made something completely her own.

A great and powerful magic that nothing could stop.

She had no vast faceless army. No nation backing her. No great plan to inspire the hearts of the people.

She simply enforced her will on the world, whatever it may be.

Alone, this girl smote the armies of man. Entire nations were burnt from the map in great scathing blasts of holy light. No matter how grand or powerful the creations of Remnant were she would destroy them all the same.

Every remaining nation in the world put behind their differences to unite against this lone girl.

The full military might of humanity laid bare against such a small frail soul.

The fighting was hard, and by the end there were scant few humans left.

Grimm returned from the far corners of the world to wreak havoc on the last bastions of humanity, but they endured despite all odds.

For in spite of the hordes of Grimm assaulting them, humanity held a bright warm hope in their hearts.

Because humanity had defeated its great foe, against which Grimm couldn't compare.

A lone little girl.

With monstrous silver eyes.

* * *

 **AN: So! That was fun. Decided to do a thing every so often where I have Salem (or because it's not audio just the narrator i guess) tell a story or fable from the old times. Was such a shame in the show that they introduce with Salem talking about legends, and never show more of them until season 3. So i plan on having one every so often as interludes of sorts.**

 **Oh, and I actually have reviews! Huzzah! So i can answer a few questions, might make this a regular thing when i have short interlude chapters.**

 **1) It was originally called Corrector's Edition because i was trying to buy a blu ray of Blade Runner and i couldn't find which one is supposed to be the "best" between all the collectors editions and directors cuts and original cuts and stuff. I thought it was a funny joke and it came up when my friend told me to write a RWBY fanfiction.**

 **2) In hindsight, i realize Glynda was acting very strange. To put it simply, she and Klara know each other but i cut the scene where Glynda chases her down and literally drags her back to Ozpin. I aim to have that in a Klara focused chapter later on, it just didn't work well in the chapter and I forgot to compensate for it after removing it. I have it on my list of things to go back and clean up when I do an edit of chapters.**

 **3) Rose will still be the team leader, essentially I have Weiss be much more chill, but lacking in willingness to take responsibility for things, Yang is Yang, and Blake just goes solo and doesn't trust her ability to make good choices, leaving Rose as the person who actually is willing to buckle down and get them in order. Plus I like the opportunities it allows for her to grow beyond being harsh and easily annoyed. (Rose's conversation with Ozpin about leadership will certainly be different.)**

 **4) I made Blake older than Adam, and his brother, because I have a younger brother, and I can tell you, their is nothing on earth that is worse than being responsible for your little brother getting hurt or doing something wrong and having to go tell your parents about it. I figured it would work better for her guilt arc, as well as give a cleaner reason she never goes home to her parents. Kinda in vein of Stormlight Archive where Kaladin doesn't go home to his parents after Tiens death.**

 **PS: In the vein of the above, one of the additional classes I will be adding will be a leadership/tactics focused class that the team leaders will take.**

 **PPS: I plan on including a lot more... "Remnants" of things. Like past civilizations, shit left over from the Great War, and ages long past. It's actually going to be a fairly major plot point all around now that i think about it.**

 **Also for those who liked Klara, thanks. I will be adding quite a few OC's over the series to fill in holes, especially since at one point team RWBY has to visit Atlas for the Vytal tournament, which will just be such a damned hassle to do.**


	6. The Morning Before

**[PATCH NOTES 1.01: General Edits and Corrections. Expanded on some dialogue. This one is still in bloody present tense. Didn't even notice until I finished editing it.]**

* * *

Volume 1 Chapter 5: The Morning Before

* * *

The next morning, Yang slowly wakes up to Rose prodding her shoulder.

"Nnnnn?"

Rose chuckles and smiles down at her sister. She is uncharacteristically cheerful this morning. Normally she would just throw Zwei, their family dog at Yang to wake her up if she was being particularly mud headed in the morning.

"C'mon Yang, get up. Most everyone is showered and dressed already, you need to get ready before our turn for initiation."

The blonde groans and briefly considers burrowing back into her sleeping bag and simply choosing a different career path instead of leaving the heavenly comfort before shaking her head to clear the cobwebs and pushing herself up.

"I'm awake. I'm awake."

Stumbling to her feat, Yang finally manages to clear her head fully and look around the room. Most of the previously packed room is empty, and some kind person righted the table she knocked over last night. On the far end of the room near the main doors stands a large holoboard with a cluster of applicants crowding around it.

Rose notices her sister looking at it curiously and explains it to her.

"They brought that in while I was showering. It has all the students' names and stuff on it alongside their temporary locker locations and what block their initiation is."

Yang nods and leans back to stretch out her back with her hands on her hips.

"So what do we got?

The red cloaked girl sighs and shakes her head.

"Well we are actually the last block. And as fate would have it, Wize and Blake are in our block."

"It's Weiss, not Wize" corrects Yang as her back pops noisily, "and that's good, Dad said we get teams somehow based on initiation remember? Better to have people we know."

Rose actually had not remembered that and holds her head in her hands mournfully. She was so worried the last day, and for what? She grabs Yang by the shoulders and shakes her.

"You never thought to bring that up?! I've been worried sick!"

Yang only laughs and pulls her sister into a hug. It's hard for her to remember sometimes that Rose wasn't supposed to be attending Beacon for three entire years, so obviously she hasn't had to suffer through the same long-winded lectures from their father about proper etiquette and how living away from home is different. Along with the lectures on getting along with your team and keeping your teams Summer ("All teams have one" as Tai loves to say) from destroying the school.

"Sorry Rose, I honestly just forgot dad didn't give you all the lectures yet. I assume Qrow never gave you any heart to heart life advice during your training?"

Rose can't help but chuckle while thinking of her training with their Uncle Qrow. The sarcastic oddly goofy Hunter who trained her wasn't exactly an emotional rock. In her experience his typical answer to emotional troubles is to pull out his flask and take a swig. So to put it lightly, his training was almost solely focused on killing Grimm.

Luckily, she was at least good with that. She could never get too much practice fighting normal people with her scythe since it is such an unusual weapon and no one other than Qrow, who also uses a scythe, was knowledgeable enough to have practice bouts without serious risk of injury.

Well, more serious risks compared to normal practice at least.

So Rose just shakes her head and says, "No, not quite. He did teach me how to tell if a bartender is watering down your drinks after the first few though."

Yang jumps in shock and grabs ahold of her sister tightly. What has that horrible Uncle been doing corrupting her pure, innocent, slightly psychotic sister?

Although the drinking age in Vale is actually 14, so it's not so corrupting as much as it is just showing the ropes to be honest.

Rose sees the shock and anger spreading over her sisters' face and quickly moves to defuse the situation.

"Calm down Yang it's fine. I didn't drink much anyway, he just wanted to show me ways to tell if someone's spiked my drink and it came up."

But of course Yang is already in full blown protective older sister mode, and the mere thought of someone trying to drug Rose is enough to turn her lilac eyes a dark bloody red and licks of fire to start taking form in her hair.

Rose pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs.

 _This is gunna be my whole morning isn't it?_

* * *

Wize, errr... Weiss is having a much better morning than the sisters. She got up nice and early, got all cleaned up before the hoard awoke, and is currently having a nice breakfast and surfing the web while she waits for her initiation block.

She was quite overjoyed about getting the last possible block, after all the more time to relax and get her mind in order the better. At least she was until she saw the names of the people with her.

Blake, sure she was nice. They shared a nice moment yesterday over their shared dislike of her father's company.

Yang was nice, and certainly full of spunk, she obviously put a lot of effort into keeping her little sister in line and hounded her until she apologized to Weiss, which she definitely appreciates.

Rose on the other hand, Weiss really doesn't want to run into. Sure, the forced, half mumbled apology at gunpoint she gave was better than nothing, but Weiss can't shake the feeling that if they meet during initiation, Rose will explode again and both of them will fail.

And Weiss definitely can't fail. Failing means she doesn't become a hunter, which means she has to go back home and live with her family. Even the high risk of death that comes with hunting Grimm is better than that.

So, with any luck, Weiss will simply go through initiation and succeed with flying colors, and not have to interact with Rose in any way whatsoever.

What could possibly be the odds of that happening? It's unknowable really.

Un. Knowable.

"Stop being a moron Yang, a few drinks now and again are not going to make me an alcoholic, besides you go out to clubs every weekend and you never hear me complaining!"

Weiss looks up to see the two sisters walk into the long hall. Yang's hair hangs from her head in damp ropes as if she hadn't taken the time to properly dry it. Rose's face was red with annoyance at her grabby sister.

"It's okay when I do it! I'm 19, you're only 16, a little baby!"

Yang grabbed onto Rose as the smaller girl grabbed two trays and began loading them up with stacks of food, bacon and eggs for yang, and stacks of pancakes absolutely drowned in syrup for Rose.

"I'm not a kid Yang, I am an adult. Mostly."

They walk back to the long tables, well Rose walks and drags Yang behind her, and they plop down heavily into two seats facing away from Weiss much to her relief.

If Rose doesn't see her, she won't yell at her.

The two bicker good naturedly for a while and Weiss can gradually relax and get back to browsing the web. Unfortunately, the White Fang, the leading Faunus rights group turned terrorist organization, had launched another attack against the Schnee Dust Company last night so her father is doing what he does best, harass and annoy her until she does what he wants. But not this time, since Hunter Academies are not under government influence, and no Hunters important enough to force her to go home care about the SDC, there is nothing he can do.

Other than repeatedly send her messages ordering her home.

The quiet ping of the received messages gradually forces her to simply shut the damned thing off and put it back into her pocket just as the sisters swap their subject of conversation.

"So Rose, got a game plan for the initiation?"

"Not die." The girl responds woodenly.

"Small world, me too. But I mean partners, I don't want you just being mine, so what's your plan?"

Weiss felt a nervous shiver go down her spine. Partners? They got partners during their initiations? No one told her that!

"Well as long as it isn't Wize, I should do fine."

Yang thumps her over the head.

"Weiss, get it right, don't be a bitch. Blake just reminded me last night that there will be faunus students here."

Rose shrugs and shoves pancake in her mouth.

"Tho?" She pauses and swallows the massive mouthful, "What's that got to do with anything?"

"We both know how you act around them, just promise me you won't be, well, you."

"Don't be me?"

Yang holds a hand out flat and tilts it back and forth.

"Well, be less of you. You know, don't be a bitch who says things to piss people off. I swear we never should have let you train with Qrow, he's given you all sort of bad habits."

The black-haired girl frowns and sticks her tongue out at her sister.

"Don't bring Qrow back into this again just because you don't like him, and I don't say things just too piss people off!"

"Yeah you do."

She shook her head.

"No I don't, It's purely coincidental."

Yang sighs and pats her sister on the head.

"Rose, it stops being coincidence after it happens one hundred percent of the time."

Rose sticks out a lip and pouts. It is always like this when the sisters argue. Inevitabley Yang spends half the time implying uncle Qrow isn't a good role model, and the other half telling Rose she only has to change her ENTIRE personality. Sure, Rose knows she can be a bit rough, and sure, she technically doesn't have any friends. And sure, just about everyone she knew in signal hated her, but that wasn't... purely her fault.

Certainly, some of it was just coincidence.

Right?

"So you want me to act like you?"

Her sister nods and chews on some bacon.

"That might work better, be positive, happy, say nice things about people."

"So ignore reality, get concussed, and flirt relentlessly with everything with two legs and a pulse?"

Yang just shrugs.

"Who knows Rose, if you pretend to be friendly long enough, you might get your first friend on accident."

Rose just shovels more food into her mouth. Both sisters never notice Weiss staring thoughtfully at their backs.

* * *

Yang is happy.

She's making new friends, Rose hasn't blown up again, and she finally has Ember Celica back in her hands. She and Rose, along with the other students in their block, are finally rooting through their temporary lockers to retrieve their weapons.

And, as it seems, Rose might actually be making a friend.

A few meters away Rose is standing next to a pretty flaming red-haired girl who introduced herself as Pyrrha. She is showing off her weapon to the drooling cloaked girl. The weapon, much like the rest of Pyrrha's attire, is a complicated weave of gold and red. The girl is wearing a golden metal tiara, and for some reason her outfit reminds Yang of some old period films she would see about the time before Vale stabilized. Lots of orange and browns with gold filigree trimmed around it. She is also very pretty, which Yang can appreciate. Way too many people with faces that obviously took just a few too many hits during training walking around today.

It's like the airship to Beacon took a layover in Punch-your-kid-in-the-face-ville and picked up half the population.

The weapon, much like the girl, was a thing of beauty. Yang can't help but smile giddily at the sight of Rose holding the complicated weapon reverently in front of her as she rapidly swaps it's forms over and over again. In a smooth sliding of mecha-shift, a spear turns into a rifle, a rifle turns into a sword, and the sword rotates back into a spear.

It's pretty fucking cool actually.

Rose's silver eyes are practically popping out of her head. She has always loved those crazy complex weapons and has always wanted to add crazier moving parts to Red Dragon but never quite had a good idea for what to do beyond just making it fold up conveniently.

That and having it spit a roaring torrent of flames with the push of a button.

So clearly only minor improvements so far.

To Rose, actually getting to see a weapon doing it so wonderfully up close and in person is both incredibly pleasing, and simultaneously inspiring. Before letting her work with an actual scythe, Qrow had run her through some other weapons just in case she was better with them (and also half to try to convince her to use a different weapon) so her mind is already bursting with a myriad of ideas for combining more weapons into her scythe.

But only time will tell.

"Hello beautiful, names Jaune Arc, rolls off the tongue, ladies love it."

Rose shrieks in surprise and whips the spear out lighting fast. The boy who has made the horrible decision to shock her out of were trance goes flying through the air until the spear nails him to the side of a row of lockers leaving him dangling by his black hoodie.

She would recognize Jaune as the blonde puking menace she wanted to kill if she gave him a closer look, but instead she just sprints past him in a flurry of rose petals to get out of the room as fast as possible.

Yang facepalms and follows after her sister, stepping around Pyrrha who is trying her best to apologize to the limply hanging Jaune and utterly failing to hold in her laughter.

* * *

"That could have gone better." Jaune mumbles as he pulls in vain at the spear holding him up. He just wanted to say hello to the cute red cloaked girl, when WHAM! all the way across the room.

Of course, this isn't exactly a big change of pace for the last day. After running off the airship he had to spend all the afternoon evading the crazed students, eventually having to hide in a tree until night fell. By then he already missed the entire orientation and the only thing left to do was go to the hall with the rest of the students to sleep. On the plus side most of the others had been too busy trying not to inhale so no one recognized him as the source of their woes, they just knew a blonde boy was responsible. Thank goodness blonde hair is more common in vale, if he had attended Haven instead he would be hanging from his feet over a fire by now or something.

"Hehehe. Need a hand?"

Jaune looks down to find the pretty flame haired girl staring up with her brilliant green eyes.

Familiar eyes.

Pumpkin Pete eyes...

"UMERGOD!" Jaune shouts as he scrambles frantically against the spear. "You were on my favorite cereal once!"

Pyrrha laughs happily and reaches out a hand. As if pulled by an invisible string the spear yanks from the wall and slaps into the palm of her hand releasing Jaune to fall to the ground.

"Yes, I was. It was quite fun, it's just too bad the cereal is so unhealthy."

"Of course, its unhealthy! That's why it's so delicious!" The blonde shouts excitibly. "So why were you on the box anyway?"

Pyrrha tilts her head in thought and giggles. "Oh my, you really don't know who I am? That's so-"

"SHES PYRRHA NIKOS!" A shout comes from across the room before a white blur rushes over. Weiss stares wide eyed at Pyrrha and hyperventilates.

"Oh my god I can't believe you are actually here! AAAAAAAAAAAHHH!"

Weiss pulls at her hair crazily, frothing at the mouth, eyes open way too wide for a normal person. Like, crazy person eyes wide.

"Well... Um... yes... that is me."

Weiss turns and throws her hands over her head screaming at Jaune. "How can you not recognize her, she won the Mistral Regional Tournament 4 years in a row!"

The white-haired girl finally catches a breath and pants heavily. Jaune leans in towards Pyrrha to look more closely at her causing the red head to shrink in on herself awkwardly. She is prepared for the usual onslaught of weird stupid questions that everyone who meets her seams to do before she is pleasantly surprised.

"So you won a tournament? That's pretty cool. Was it a big one?"

Oh my? He doesn't know who she is? PERFECT! Pyrrha has been so sick of people having preconceived notions of her, how refreshing it will be to have a fresh opinion who can actually get to know her!

"Well it was actually pre-" "IT WAS HUGE!" Weiss interrupts again.

Pyrrha pinches the bridge of her nose. This is why she doesn't like being recognized.

* * *

An hour later the sun is high in the sky over Beacon, the mists have been burned off, and the final block of the initiation have made their way to the edges of the cliff.

Rose arrives alongside her sister, who is chatting cheerfully despite the red girl only making the briefest of responses and stands just off to the side of the small group of talking students. Headmaster Ozpin and Professor Goodwitch are standing a few meters away talking quietly while staring off the cliff towards the forests below.

Any minute now it would start and Rose could finally get to doing what she does best, slaughter Grimm!

As if on cue Ozpins quiet voice silences all the assorted conversations and the students turn to listen to their, hopefully, soon to be teacher.

"Welcome to the initiation. It's quite simple this year, all you have to do is get to the ruins to the north", he points his cane off the cliff and towards the tops of some buildings barely visible over the massive forest, "and bring one back a little relic. One per pair of students."

Well that's not too bad. Rose was sure it would be something horrible based on Qrows constant complaints about Ozpin.

"When you are in the forest, the first person you make eye contact with will be your partner for the rest of your schooling."

 _Kill me now._

She really hoped partners would be assigned in some intelligent way, such as by who meshes the best, or based on complimentary skills.

But random? RANDOM?

"Fun fun fun... " Rose mumbles under her breath.

Next Professor Goodwitch directs the hoard of students to stand on small rectangular platforms in a line on the cliffs edge. A couple students Rose never met take the first dozen spots, followed by Blake, Yang, Rose, the blond moron, Pyrrha, and in last place is Wize.

Weiss. Whatever.

"Now keep in mind. The forest is a very dangerous place, and the Grimm in their will kill you given half the chance. So stay alert, and don't do anything stupid." He looks up and down the row of potential students, eyes lingering on Yang and Vomit Boy for some reason.

Rose certainly wont do anything stupid. In, out, find a partner she doesn't immediately hate, find a relic, blow off some steam slaughtering Grimm, and make it back in time for an early dinner.

A perfect plan, that is of course never going to happen.

"I trust you all have a good landing strategy picked out, because we will be launching you now."

As he finishes the student furthest up the line is suddenly blasted through the air towards the forest at breakneck speed.

"AAAAAAAAaaahhhhh!" His screams slowly die away before a quiet *thud* echoes out as he impacts a tree a mile or so away.

Rose chuckles and Ozpin smirks as he looks at the students' reactions. What kind of moron tries to be a Hunter and doesn't properly prepare for ALL EVENTUALITIES!?

Even the stupid ones!

Especially the stupid ones!

But speaking of morons.

"Umm.. Landing strategy?" Jaune speaks up as another student is launched, this time with an excited whoop.

Ozpin nods and sips his coco. "Yes Mr. Arc, landing strategy." Another student goes flying, tumbling head over heels as they lose balance and crash through the branches off in the distance.

"Did you hand out parachutes or something when I wasn't looking?" More launched students.

"No Mr. Arc, it is up to the applicants to plan their own Landing Strategy."

Blake gets launched without so much as a noise coming from the girl followed closely by Yang, who lets out a joyous roar as the platform launches her skyward. "YEEHAH!"

Jaune stutters trying to think of something that Rose can only describe as his usual idiocy to Ozpin. "Eeeh... ummm.. I..."

Rose turns to the blond moron as she draws her scythe and rests it on her shoulder. She tries as hard as she can to think of something whitty like her sister would. A real quality zinger. Something memberable that he will think about later when hes sitting down for lunch or something that will just ruin his day.

But alas, she is not her sister, so she settles for petty.

"You are a special kind of idiot you know that?"

Juane perks up and looks at Rose, "You think I'm special?"

Her face falls as Pyrrha bursts out laughing next to her. She points at him and is just inhaling to scream insults at him when the platform bursts upward and she goes flying. The combined laughter of Pyrrha and Ozpin following her through the air.

And as such, the Beacon initiation has begun.

* * *

 **Welcome to the bottom of my slightly edited chapter. I was kinda thinking about having Ozpin be a bit wierder in my version, namely I considered making ihm forget the names of locations constantly and have Glynda correct him or some wierd goofy shit like that. I ended up not using it. Might go back and expand his dialogue to include it at a later date if i find it works better in writing later. As usual, roginal authors notes below, updated thoughts in [].**

* * *

 **AN: Boy I have so many troubles writing Jaune. Everything about him took me so damn long, and still came out just god awful. I will have to redo the entire him meeting Pyrrha and Weiss fan-girling over her part sometime, but it drained me so much even completing that drivel that i just have to move on to the next thing.**

 **[Its gotten a bit let annoying to write, still prefer writing Pyrrha over him. But alas, he will be important so i have to write him more eventually]**

 **PS: The initiation itself will be a farely standard fare.**

 **[Turns out this was a lie. Mostly because I made Grimm stronger.]**

 **PPS: Just realized i forgot to introduce Ren and Nora. I'm a fricking genius. Oh well, may as well do it next chapter instead since they are background until initiation anyway.**

 **PPPS: In case it wasn't obvious, I plan on having Jaune stalk Rose creepily instead of Weiss. I hate the entire plot of that anyway because its bloody stupid as shit, but I enjoy seeing characters shit on Jaune, and I also want Pyrrha to get pissed at Rose and kick her butt.**

 **[I plan on having Rose and Pyrrha have kinda a one sided rivalry where Rose wants to win at everything and Pyrrha is just a goofball and doesn't notice. I want them to evolve to be friends by the time Pyrrha bites the bullet so Rose actually loses a best friend instead of just a normal friend.]**

 **PPPPS: Pyrrha is not quite as universally skilled in this version, she will basically be an expert at fighting people, but bad against Grimm, the opposite of Rose's expert at fighting Grimm, but limited at people. More stuff I plan on expanding on once this FRICKING INITIATION IS OVER! HOLEY COW I'M TAKING MY SWEET ASS TIME WITH IT!**

 **[Thank god. Its over, time for a billion classes. have so many random lore changes and expansions i need to somehow put in. Gunna be such a pain.]**


	7. An Eventful Landing

**AN: Beginning of initiation. I originally had all of initiation as one chapter, but it is about 15k words so i decided to give it some splits. Also, back to past tense with the writing. Kept messing up tenses when i was playing around with present and it got annoying.**

* * *

Volume 1 Chapter 6: An Eventful Landing

* * *

Wind rushed past Rose in a deafening roar as she flew at breakneck speed through the air. Far below her the massive trees of the Emerald Forest blurred by, looking more like running paint than an actual collection of trees. Rose was still red in the face and fuming, but she had the presence of mind to properly orient herself for her landing strategy.

At least she did until a large black bird chose the worst moment to fly directly in front of her.

"NO! BIRDY!"

She screamed and tried to twist herself out of the way. She didn't dodge it entirely but she did manage to turn a direct impact into a much softer deflection causing the bird to thump into her side and rush away from her.

 _I hope that wasn't a relative._

Bird saved, fury forgotten, she once again focused herself fully and prepared herself to land. She didn't actually have to give it too much thought, after all Qrow trained her well enough and she had been put in vaguely similar situations before.

Unlike some people.

She considered giving the flamethrower a spin and just pointing it in front of her to slow down, or conversely behind her to accelerate and just fly all the way to the ruins, but she didn't want to risk getting in trouble for burning down the forest and settled for a more, dignified landing. Instead as she got low enough to be within reach of a tree, she gripped the long pole of her scythe tightly in both hands and drove it into the trunk of a passing tree. The blade caught into the wood and whipped her around the tree in tight fast loops, slowly loosing speed as she spiraled her way down the tree.

 _Good thing Red is so sharp or that would have dislocated my shoulders._

When her speed finally slowed to a nice managed level she gave the handle a yank and it popped out of the tree allowing her to fall lightly to the ground.

Landing strategy successful!

Rose folded Red Dragon up into its portable form and holstered it on her back before looking around to survey where she landed. All around her the massive pillars of tree trunks towered into the sky. Everything had a pleasant green tinge from the light filtering through the roof of foliage high above.

But more importantly to Rose, she did not see any Grimm.

Which made her immediately suspicious of that fact.

The Emerald Forest couldn't exactly be considered a hotspot for Grimm activity, after all it was right next to a thriving city so they couldn't just let massive amounts of Grimm run around unchecked, but it had a fairly stable population. Ironically, the proximity to Beacon actually meant the Grimm _weren't_ hunted to death in the forest. The Academy needed a fairly steady supply of the more common types of Grimm for the students to cut their teeth on so they allowed the population to remain despite its otherwise worrying proximity to Vale proper.

It helped that the massive woods didn't have anything particularly important or interesting inside it beyond the old Valean ruins.

Rose gave the silent forest around her a long suspicious glance before reaching into a pocket on her belt and pulling out a small wooden box that fit in the palm of her hand. It was of course, one of the most important tools of a Hunter, a compass! Despite advancements of technology, scrolls and whatnot, Qrow had long ago pounded it into her head that she should rely on the tried and true methods that didn't overly complicate things.

Hence, a nice little compass.

"Okay. So north is..." She held the compass in front of her steadily, "That way. Easy peasy."

She looked up into the foliage above her to try and gauge if she could use the light from above to easily remember the proper direction, but not enough of the sky was visible for her to do anything useful with it. Instead she simply hung the compass on a little leather thong around her neck so she could check it regularly. And with that, she started her journey through the woods.

LINE BREAK

Weiss's landing went very well.

Her launch came just a few short moments after Roses. Ozpin having cheerfully ignored any more of Jaunes questions before sending the remaining applicants into the air.

Weiss had to admit that she actually enjoyed seeing someone else be the focus of Roses ire. Poor Juane, he had so much to live for.

Once she was in the air she managed to put all thoughts on the other applicants out of her head and began readying her glyphs. All around her hands small swirls of white light formed glowing mystical symbols, rotating and pulsing around her hands in eye twisting patterns that were oddly difficult to focus clearly on. With a grunt she thrust her hand forward with its coating of symbols and a long path of white markings painted themselves along the path of her fall.

Each time she passed through one of the rings of symbols, it felt as if every part of her body received a sharp tug. On their own each glyph didn't do too much to slow her fall, but combined, the dozens of small changes in velocity each one provided allowed her to settled lightly on her feet on the forest floor.

She smiled wide and gave the woods around her a quick look before drawing Myrtenaster just in case some Grimm her hiding around her. The pale girl couldn't help but let out a loud cheer at having used her glyphs so effectively. Weiss hadn't exactly practiced that sort of maneuver before, but she was aware it was possible from watching her sister practice.

So all in all, considering she had to do some improv, quite the successful Landing Strategy.

Weiss took a few more moments to pat herself on the back before finally bothering to figure out where to go. She looked at the massive trees obscuring the air, and her glyphs had already faded away into nothingness, so all in all...

She had no damn clue where to go.

Not one to let a little thing like "direction" get to her, Weiss simply spun in a circle and chose a direction at random. It wasn't a good plan, but she didn't exactly have a better one, so with a spring in her step, sword in hand, she began her trek through the woods.

After a few long minutes of trudging through the forest, Weiss came to a conclusion.

She did not care for the woods.

Outdoors, fine, she could enjoy the outdoors, but deep woods? Filled with brambles and overgrowth that you have to push your way through?

Not so much.

After far too many thorny bushes, low hanging branches just waiting to hit her in the face, failed trees blocking her path, and water slicked rocks causing her to lose her balance, she finally had enough. She had hoped that finally being away from her overbearing family would mean she could get a damned break from stupid nonsense designed only to make her suffer. But it turns out Beacon would still be a pain in her ass.

"WHY CAN'T TESTS EVER BE SOMEPLACE PLEASANT!?" She screamed at the top of her lungs, sword waving crazily in the air in the front of her as if she was assaulting an imaginary version of the test maker.

Her brief tirade helped her get rid of some of her pent-up frustration, and it also certainly alerted any nearby applicants to her presence, which would be a good thing if they didn't have a partner yet.

It also definitely surprised the ever-living shit out of the hulking beowolf Grimm that chose that moment to step around a tree into her field of view.

The beowolf in question was typical for its type of Grimm, lanky and more of a cross between a pitch-black wolf with armor plating and a humanoid than just a strait wolf. The white plates were pristine, with none of the deep scratches or red lines that they naturally accumulated with age as they got into fights and went through whatever the Grimm equivalent of puberty is.

All told Weiss is was a very young Grimm, nothing to worry about. Weiss drew back her sword as a glyph flashed into existence under her feat.

In the blink of an eye, before the beowolf had time to actually decide what to do, the silver flash of Myrtenaster stabbed hilt deep into the monsters unarmored neck. The wolf like Grimm let out a low hiss, like air being let out of a balloon and its entire body fell slack. Weiss easily yanked Myrtenaster out of the limp corpse as black mist slowly began to rise from the body.

Unlike normal living creatures, Grimm did not just die and leave a body to rot. When killed a Grimm would slowly but surely dissolve into thin air leaving behind nothing but the death and destruction it left in its wake as a reminder it ever existed. It was a common joke that Grimm are so focused on destroying things they can't even make themselves useful feeding worms.

"Good job Weiss!" She said happily, swishing her sword from side to side. Grimm didn't produce any blood you would need to get off your blade, but it was a comforting habit. "Okay now we can focus on... finding... the ruins... shit."

All around her in the shadows of the forest beowolves slowly stalked forward.

Now this was something to worry about.

Four beasts stood to her front, and she could see another in each side of her periphery. A crack of a branch breaking rang out from behind her and she quickly shot into the air, propelled by another glyph. A graceful arc took her over the back of the ambushing monster. As she passed over it she slashed out with her blade and cut a streak down its back from shoulder to hip.

Landing solidly behind the falling Grimm she barely had time to react as the rest of its pack mates came charging forward over the body of their comrade.

Acting on instinct she pulled the dust trigger in the grip of Myrtenaster and slashed horizontally in front of her. A fine stream of red dust left a glowing trail behind the tip of her blade just in front of the beasts' tooth filled maws.

WOOOSH!

Weiss was thrown back as the dust ignited in a spectacular flash of heat and pressure. Her back slammed into a tree but the fine layer of aura surrounding her flared and protected her from the impact.

The Grimm on the other hand weren't so lucky.

The dust detonated point blank in their faces. Three of them were decapitated and killed instantly, two were flung back into tree trunks of their own and fell to the ground where they remained unmoving, and the last one was shaking on the forest floor clawing at its face, howling in agony.

 _I never thought I would feel bad for a Grimm_ Weiss thought as she stepped forward to finish the flailing beast off for good. She pulled back her rapier and thrust it forward in one smooth motion, penetrating through the beasts lightly plated paw and stabbing straight through its head.

The Grimm instantly began to emit a dark mist mirroring the others. She sighed and wiped at the sheen of sweat off of her forehead. All that trekking through the woods followed by a few terrifying, if brief, seconds of fighting really got the blood pumping.

"LOOK OUT!" A panicked shout came from in front of her. A red blur shot through her field of vision and she felt a sharp impact on the back of her shoulders before her vision was filled by the mossy floor she was suddenly laying face first on.

Dazed, it took the girl a moment to shake the fuzz out of her head and flip over onto her back to see what the red blur had been.

In front of her, what was once a final unseen beowolf that had been waiting to surprise her was now a pitiful mass of fur and bone that was quickly vanishing. Standing over it with one booted foot on the pile was Rose. She had her scythe blade buried inside the body of the wolf and was using her foot in combination with sawing motions from the blade to cut the Grimm into chunks. Each pass with the blade caused the entire body to emit increasing amounts of smoke, and also cause some of the most horrendous flesh cutting sounds Weiss had ever head.

"You can never be too careful with them you know? They love having one sneak around waiting for you to get distracted." Rose said happily, her face was so oddly warm and smiley compared to the angry moody girl Weiss had met earlier.

Weiss blinked and rubbed her eyes. _Obviously, I must have taken a hit to the head and am now hallucinating, there's no way Rose could be acting so nice._

Rose finished her evisceration of the monster and with a flick of her wrist Red Dragon folded back up into its compact form and was quickly stowed on her back. She wiped the sweat off her palms and turned to her new partner, arm extended to help her up.

"Hi! Im Rose Xia-oh no... why did it have to be you..." The happy girl finished. She quickly retracted her hand and twiddled her fingers together in front of her chest nervously. Of all the people to be randomly partnered with, she just had to rescue the person at Beacon she disliked the most. Well, second most. She definitely disliked Vomit Boy more.

Weiss stared up in open mouthed shock at the sudden change that overcame the girl. The smiling confident hunter in training that had just recused her transformed into an awkward looking nervous girl whose eyes kept shooting off towards the side as if she was looking for a path to run away.

Weiss huffed and stumbled to her feet and brushed her clothes off. Rose just kept staring nervously at the girl almost like she was trying to think of something to say before she stiffly moved off and started butchering the remains of the other Grimm.

As Rose went about her oddly gruesome task, Weiss finished checking herself and her gear for damage and stared at the other girls work, face etched with confusion. Why on earth would the girl destroy the bodies of the Grimm like that? It was so... well... barbaric.

The silence obviously wasn't helping either of them, so she gathered herself and pushed ahead.

"Why are you doing that to them?"

Rose jumped and almost dropped her scythe. For some reason she honestly hadn't expected the white girl to say anything. She stood there, boot on the neck of a death beowolf for a few seconds as she considered what to say. Act like Yang and make a perverted joke? Insult her? Just tell her the truth?

After an awkwardly long deliberation she finally continued the butchering and mumbled an answer.

"As long as they're evaporating they attract other Grimm, so you cut them to make them burn up faster so the time frame is narrowed."

That was what her Uncle Qrow had always told her, and he never seemed to be wrong about anything. At least not about hunting. She questioned his intelligence just about every time the subject of whether or not alcohol tasted terrible or not came up. "Nectar of the Gods" had to either be a joke, or just pure delusion.

Rose moved to another corpse and continued her explanation. Her voice had gone from nervous to oddly calm and detached. Less like an awkward child and more like a teacher giving a patient explanation.

"The faster burn rate does attract stronger Grimm though, so you can use it to lure out Majors and Alphas if you are too lazy to track them down."

Weiss nodded. It made since after all. Most people just considered dead Grimm to be bad luck, so it wasn't much of a stretch to connect the dots to dead Grimm being magnets for more.

After all, more Grimm suddenly showing up and murdering you is pretty bad luck.

A thought occurs to Weiss.

"How do you know all this? You are three years younger than me, aren't you?"

Rose smirked and Weiss suddenly remember the arrogance and rudeness the girl displayed earlier.

"Well princess, some of us actually went out of our way to learn a thing or two before deciding to become Hunters."

Weiss face turned a bright red. Why was this little brat constantly berating her at every opportunity? She hadn't even let her properly apologize for the explosion without tearing into her!

"But if you really wanna know, Yang and I come from a family of Hunters. This stuff just comes up over the dinner table."

 _You couldn't just say that the first time?_ Weiss thought and rubbed her temples. She could already feel a headache coming on from having to deal with this child.

Rose finished carving up the remaining wolves in a few short minutes and began to walk into the brush without waiting for Weiss.

"Wait a minute!" Weiss shouted as she stared after the girl in exasperation, "We saw each other, so we are partners now, you can't just pretend we didn't or we might get disqualified!"

Rose shrugged and forced her way through to a clearing.

"Hi!" A voice shouted from above, it surprised Rose enough that her scythe was fully extended and in her hand before she fully registered the voice. Her eyes slowly tracked up the trees until they found the source...

Vomit Boy...

The blonde boy was hanging by a Pyrrhas spear, once more nailed through his hoody, about fifty feet up the trunk of a tree just below the branches.

"Could you please help me down?"

Weiss kicked a rock as she considered following after the red cloaked girl. She didn't know why she even bothered chasing after her initially, after all the girl was such a brat she didn't want her as a partner anyway, she just really didn't want to get in trouble.

The bushes in front of her rattled loudly and she lined up Myrtenaster, ready to pierce through whatever Grimm was approaching.

Instead of a beast, a surly looking Rose cut her way through the bush with her scythe, leaving a trail of destruction behind her. The angry looking girl glared unhappily at Weiss.

"Okay we can be partners."

Weiss nodded, conflicted emotions flashing across her face. She wouldn't be disqualified! Hurray! She had to work with Rose... nooooooo...

Rose pulled her compass out on its little thong and gave it a quick look.

"North is this way." Rose mumbled and continued slicing her way through the forest. Literally carving her way towards their objective.

* * *

Far away, a bird smacked into a tree trunk and slid to the ground. It lay their, still and unmoving except for it's slow breathing.

In a rush of feathers the little black bird expanded into the form of a middle agef man with short black hair and a angular face with hard black eyes wearing an odd combination of ratty formal clothing. He stood on wobbly legs for a moment before setting his back against the tree and sliding down it onto his rear. He put both his palms against his aching head and rubbed them over his eyes.

"In hindsight, stopping by to watch initiation might not have been the best idea."

He pulled out a small flask and took a long swig.

"Oh sweet nectar! Save me!"

* * *

 **AN: Colors (i tend to go by Colors by the way sense every account/character in a game i make is Color Me "descriptive term") here once again with your overly long authors notes!**

 **So this chapter gave us the first pairing. Next chapter is Yang and Blake, and might be out later today if I don't get distracted by Guild Wars 2 again. As you might have noticed, Weiss has just about lost all her patience when it comes to Rose. I actually don't have any real changes in mind for Yang and Blakes meeting so i ended up doing like 10 or so different version of varying weirdness just to see if i could do anything fun with it. But for the most part the default meeting works the best. Ren and Nora still haven't been introduced, but sense they aren't important yet, i think ill just drop them in when they ride the Grimm to the ruins like most seem to do.**

 **PS: I dont know if they ever explained the Grimm dissolving thing, and I cant be bothered to check. I ended up coming up with both my own lore reason it happens, and the stuff you see in the chapter. Also made it so Rose received more training beyond just scythe work from her Uncle.**

 **PPS: Friend of mine pointed out that he was confused that Yang doesn't seem to like Qrow in my version. I couldn't think of a good way to explain this without having Yang or Rose just exposition dump onto another character, so to put it simply, Qrow refuses to tell Yang anything about Raven, where she is, what she is doing, etc.**

 **PPPS: I'm test writing out different Pyrrha personalities atm. She is kinda... bland in the main show so I'm just trying to give her some sort of "Zing" factor beyond just being good at fighting. If you have any ideas, feel free to yell them loudly at me. I plan on having her, Rose, and Jaune play off each other quite a bit, especially over their first year at Beacon, so i need her to be more distinct.**

 **PPPPS: Im still playing with how characters use dust. in this chapter i had Myrtenaster essentially just let out a stream of it and than explode it. Not 100% on the exact methodology i want it to have yet.**


	8. Crash and Burn

**Colors here once again with more of this. Got distracted by Guild Wars 2 and forgot to actually finish writing this. Turned out strange. The OOC craziness is only going more off the rails from here. Shitload of notes at the end again, sense i keep thinking of shit to say for some reason. Soon the Authors Notes will gain sentience and take over the rest of the chapters, becoming a insane story all of their own. Or maybe ill stop being a moron and just do things instead of explaining them, who knows, only time will tell.**

 **Also, i just realized i could change the name of the story to RWBY: Colors Edition and keep the RWBY:CE acronym.**

 **But to be honest i enjoy knowing I'm annoying people by telling them I'm better than the show we love despite all evidence to the contrary (ie, my terrible sentence structure, repetitive use of words, and overall poor descriptive abilities) just a little too much.**

 **It definitely isn't because I don't quite know how to change the title.**

* * *

Volume 1 Chapter 7: Crash and Burn

* * *

Yang was still laughing her ass off when she hit the first tree.

No, she didn't collide with it headfirst. That would be idiotic.

She hit the tree feet first.

…

….

She totally headbutted the shit out of it.

"MOTHER FUCKER!" The blonde screamed in rage as she burst through the other end of the trunk. Her hair glowed a bright yellow like a hot flame and her eyes shot red.

"EAT SHIT MOTHER NATURE!"

The next tree in her path exploded into massive chunks when her gauntleted fist impacted with the force of a bus. All the shrapnel from the tree bounced off her aura, but the phantom pain that came with using aura to stop them only further stoked her anger.

Tree after tree lost their lives as she steamrolled her way through the tree tops. Each explosive impact propelled the young woman faster and faster, and ever closer to the ruins.

Poor trees.

Miles closer to the ruins Yang finally slowed her full-frontal assault on mother nature. Her hairs glow had dimmed to a soft glow and her eyes faded back to their normal lilac hue. The next tree she approached received a soft grab instead of a heavy punch, drawing away the rest of her speed.

Well, soft for Yang. The tree still died a horrible death when her hand dug into it and ripped a massive gash down its entire trunk.

Yang turned and looked back on the trail of destruction behind her and let out a whistle.

 _Wow. Not half bad!_

It didn't quite match up to the destruction she wrought in the woods on Patch, but it was a good start for her first day in Beacon. She had always enjoyed going on rampages in the woods, slaughtering Grimm and just in general cutting loose.

Unbeknownst to her the normally quiet people of Patch had thrown an impromptu party when they learned the girl whose noisy rampages kept them up at night had finally left the island.

Yang gave herself a quick brush off and checked Ember and Celica to make sure no pieces of tree were wedged inside their little moving bits. She didn't find arnt so she turned her attention to deciding where to go now that she was comfortably on the ground.

Luckily for her it was an easy decision.

She could stare down the long trail of fallen trees and just barely make out the distant figures of headmaster Ozpin and Professor Goodwitch high on the cliffs top, so it was pretty much a straight shot. Meaning all she has to do is continue the same way she was already flying to reach the ruins.

 _It's almost like that was on purpose!_ She thought happily. Maybe she could play it off as something other than getting angry at an inanimate object and destroying the forest. The silhouette of Professor Goodwitch looked quite... peeved.

A cold sweat trickled down her back.

 _If Rose wasn't exaggerating she is going to kill me._

Rose hadn't told Yang much about the night just a day ago that led to her being allowed into Beacon, mostly she just said that Ozpin was weird and Goodwitch kept trying to murder a little girl.

All in all not good things to hear about a Professor at your new school.

Yang of course believed Rose was simply exaggerating again. She did it often enough when she was little. She didn't go out much other than to train or help Uncle Qrow with something, or just follow him around asking him inane questions, but the few people she did meet she later told Yang they were stupid or some other scathing remark, only for Yang to find them completely normal.

Yang pretty much just chalked it up to Rose being kind of an introverted brat.

Or as it is known in layman's terms, a bitch.

Yang shook her head and put the thoughts of her sister out mind. She gave one last look down the path she carved through the forest before pointing herself in the right direction and going about her way.

* * *

Blake Belladonna was standing on the very top of a tree when the entire forst seemed to buck and shake below her.

 _What the hell is going on down their?_

She had climbed to the top of the tree to get a better vantage to check her progress to the ruins again, but just as she was about to go back down it was like someone triggered an earthquake.

After a long fear filled moment the world returned to normal and Blake can relax her death grip on the tree. From far below her a glee filled shout filters its way through the canopy.

"Woohoo! Come get some beowolves! Come to mamma Yang!"

An ear-splitting BOOM blasted through the forest as one of the nearby trees Blake was not standing on shuddered as if struck by a hammer and slowly tipped over.

Directly towards Blakes tree.

 _Aaah crap._

Blake had several options. She could do nothing, and probably have a bad time when the tree hits her tree and they both collapse on her. She could jump to another tree and hope it doesn't also get caught up. Or finally she could just let go of the tree and plummet down towards the loud girl doing her best to destroy everything, and hopefully figure out why she was collaterally damaging every damn thing nearby.

She chose option three. She let go just before the tree impacted and went springing around, and fell quickly the hundred or so feet to the forest floor. Without Aura it would certainly be a lethal fall, but with Aura it would still be unpleasant, but with proper training it wasn't anything too special.

As she fell she could see the blonde girl fighting off a hoard of beowolves. Any time one of the lanky Grimm got to close to the brawler she would either sent it flying with a punch that hit like a truck or grab a hold of them and fling them headlong into a tree.

 _Well that explains the shaking_ , Blake thought as she saw the girl send one Grimm like a bowling ball through a group of four wolves, causing them all to go flying into the trunk of a tree.

She tucked into a tight roll when she hit the ground. Her aura could have absorbed the impact if she just landed on her legs, but it was easier to spread out the force if you spread it out over your entire body.

Blake used the momentum from her roll to unlatch her cleaver and cut down a beowolf trying to sneak up on Yang. The Grimm screached in agony as the heavy blade cut up hits thigh and across its side before falling to the ground and emitting the black mist.

One down. Only... a shit ton to go.

Yang gave Blake a happy cheer when she saw the black clad girl slashing her way through the Grimm alongside her and she redoubled her efforts to pound the wolves into next week. The two hunter's in training tore through the grimm in no time, and just a few minutes later the girls were looking arround into the trees expecting something else to pop out and try to murder them.

"Hear anything?" Yang asked. Her arms were still up and her body tensed. She knew some Grimm chose to wait out a fight until their prey relaxed to pounce.

Unnoticed by Yang, Blakes bow twitched slightly and she gave the forest a hard look.

"No, I don't think there's anything left around us."

Yang gave a whoop and pumped her fist in the air at the girl's confirmation. She was pretty sure that nothing was waiting to kill them, she was prety experienced with wrecking beowolves after all, but it never went amiss to get a second opinion.

"Well new partner. Do you think we should butcher the bodies, or just get a move on?"

Blakes bow twitched again and her face twisted into a half confused and half disgusted grimace.

"Say what now?"

Yang sighed and waved a hand at the dozens of bodies surrounding them.

"Okay I guess you don't come from a Hunter family. Dead Grimm attract more Grimm, you can make the attraction last less time, but attract stronger Grimm by tearing them into little pieces. We can either tear them up now, and leave this location immediately which should lure stronger Grimm to this spot, which we will no longer be at, or we can just leg it now before more wolves and Ursa or something similar get attracted."

Blake stared at the normally energetic girl. It sounded like she was reciting from a book, or repeating a lesson taught to her. Yangs voice was completely devoid of the normal boundless jumpiness she had come to expect from their brief, but fun conversation.

"Well... Is... Butchering them hard?"

The blond shook her head with a smile and stepped over to a smoking beowolf corpse.

"Nah not really, Rose has a blade so she can do it faster than me, but even without you just need to get some good leverage," she grabbed one of the wolves' arms and lifted it up while planting her feet on its still chest, "and give a good sharp yank!" The girl grunted and heaved on the arm. A sickening crack and pop came from the limb as it was torn away from the body.

Blake stared wide eyed at the smiling Yang.

"Okay I vote we just leave."

* * *

Rose was not happy.

She really wanted to get a partner she would, if not get along perfectly with, at least someone she could stand to be around. Instead she got Weiss. Not only was she seemingly completely unprepared for the initiation, she did the one thing Rose hated the most.

She talked constantly.

Not about important things either, like where Grimm are, strange noises that could be an Ursa hiding in a tree like those oddly sneaky fat suckers often chose to do. She instead kept asking questions about Rose, for reasons she just couldn't fathom.

"So where are you from?" The annoyingly chipper girl asked from her position walking alongside Rose.

"Patch."

"The island? That towns mostly Hunters, right? Is that why you know so much already?"

The red cloaked girl shrugged.

"Most combat schools don't go into much more than just pure fighting you know; all the actual Grimm stuff is usually left for the actual Hunter Academies."

"Yup."

Weiss slowed slightly and looked nervously at the back of the short-tempered girls head. She really didn't want to start off on such a wrong foot with her partner, she figured if she asked questions about her life, she would ask some in return and so on, and wham! Instant partner bonding.

But Rose seemed to have come down with a case of lock jaw, only answering in short clipped sentences, when she chose to answer at all.

Weiss wasn't one to give up easily though. She _needed_ to get into Beacon, and do well once in, she wasn't about to let one angry little girl ruin all her chances.

"Okay Rose, I know you dislike me, and I'm sorry you feel that way, but we're partners, can't you just, I don't know, start back over from the beginning? Fresh start and all that?"

Rose froze and Weiss took that as permission to go on.

"Hello new partner, my name is Weiss Schnee."

Rose stood stock still and slowly moved her hand behind her back towards her weapon. Weiss of course was standing behind her and saw this immediately.

 _Okay so maybe she is angrier than I thought._

Red flashed as in one lightning quick motion Rose drew her scythe and slashed it, the blade trailed rose petals as it passed just to Weiss's side where it struck the charging Boarbatusk that had been stalking them.

The Boar Grimm's fast roll was interrupted and the monster went tumbling past the two girls and into a tree. A red blur followed it as it tumbled and just as it impacted the tree with its back, the massive blade of Roses scythe stabbed through its exposed unarmored stomach.

Weiss didn't have time to process what just happened because as soon as Rose went after the Boarbatusk another group of beowolves came charging from the shadows.

The beasts came from both sides, so she couldn't jump away from them. Instead she whipped her sword out to send a trail of red dust to either side and chased after Rose. The dust detonated behind her causing her aura to flair in response and launched her away from the wolves.

Rose for her part was already finished with the boar and turned to fight the beowolves. She rushed forward and made a wide horizontal slash at the wolves, sending them stumbling back. Her massive scythe blade wasn't exactly subtle and was rubbish at hitting something precisely with all the momentum it needed, but it excelled at corralling groups of Grimm.

The two young women fought well for a time. There were more than enough Grimm for each of them to focus on their own kills without getting in the way of each other. Weiss uses dust to keep groups at bay while singling out individuals to stab through with her rapier. Rose on the other hand used wide sweeping arcs to cleave through and pummel as many Grimm as she could at once.

But once the numbers thinned a problem arose.

As wolves died or fled from the two, they suddenly found themselves having to fight _around_ each other.

Rose made another wide slash with her scythe only to see Weiss leap into its path. She twisted the blade to the side and the momentum sent her tumbling. Weiss saw Rose tumble and as pulled the small trigger on Myrtenaster as it stabbed through the Grimm. The blue dust in the chamber blasted out the back of the Grimm and in a flash blasted a massive cone of ice into the other Grimm.

And also right into Rose, sending her tumbling head over heals and into a tree.

Rose had planted her blade into the ground and used it as a lever to launch herself back into the wolves. It would have worked quite well, if she was alone.

But she was not.

 _Okay Yang I would like to get off the ride now._ The girl thought groggily. She slid down the trunk of the tree and landed upside down on her head.

Weiss ran over towards her fallen partner.

"Oh dust I'm so sorry I didn't think you wo-"

"What the heck was that?!" Rose growled angrily. She fell off of her head onto her side and jumped to her feet, staring daggers at Weiss.

"Those were fricking Beowolves! _Beowolves!_ That should have been easy! I could have done that in my sleep!"

Weiss face went red. She was so damn sick of this brat. All she did was yell and complain, she had had enough.

"Are you an idiot!" She screamed shrilly, "What do you _think_ happened!? We attacked at the same time and got in each others way! You're lucky your aura held or you would be _dead_ moron!"

Weiss breathed deaply and prepared to go on.

Rose stared wide eyed at the angry girl and tried to interject.

"Well maybe if the person who obviously enjoys talking so much would _speak up_ during the actual _fight_ you wouldn't have gotten in my-"

"Every time I talk you get angry at me you dolt! We are _partners_ we _need_ to talk to each other. We _need_ to know how the other fights! Why do you think I was asking you so many questions? Because I _want_ to get to know you and how you fight!"

The girl kept yelling, growing more and more incoherent as she went.

"Well I'm sorry if _you_ need help to win! I'm just fine on my _own_!" Rose shouted back.

Rose quickly learned that was the wrong thing to say when Weiss grabbed her by the collar and pulled her close.

"You little shit! I was forgiving before because you were younger than me, but I figured you were at least some sort of prodigy, but _clearly_ I was wrong!" Weiss screamed and shook her. With an angry huff Weiss pushed Rose away. The smaller girl stumbled and fell onto her butt.

Weiss looked down at the girl, too tired to even be angry.

"Congratulations. You are the strongest _child_ to sneak their way into Beacon. Bravo."

She turned away and stomped off into the forest. As she pushed her way through the bushes, she couldn't see Rose sitting on the floor, tears streaming down her face.

* * *

 **AN: Welcome to the bottom of the page!**

 **As you probably noticed, my main goal with Rose and Weiss initially was to make Weiss' remark about her being childish (which is still true in the show, just not as important) hit home more and actually make Weiss the good guy in the hole thing. I want their to be alot more room for the characters as a hole to improve, both in personality and skill.**

 **Which reminds me.**

 **I dont know how I will portray this, but as Weiss said the combat schools are more straight learning weapons based, not Hunting Grimm. And one part of that will be that the casts weapons will be changing quite drastically over the series as they decide what kind of hunter they want to be and accommodate for what they will go up against, sence i figure those should grow and change with them as they learn more. Yangs is straightforward, still just shotgun gauntlets that will get some changes later. Weiss is a rapier with no slashing blade, and is pretty much normal, but will have additions over time as well. Roses is completely different, and will change drastically. And Blakes weapon i felt was too complicated for what i wanted from "year one" Beacon students. So I have removed the gun and weird scythe thing entirely for now. As is it is just a cleaver, that has a katana in it, and they can be split apart and they are connected with an extendable ribbon.**

 **Basically, Grimm hunters will have big Monster Hunter style weapons to some degree, People hunters will have normalish weapons, etc.**

 **The idea with yang is her gauntlets will gain more versatility, Weiss will start out by getting a slashing edge to her weapon, Rose will be getting modular, and Blake will gradually turn into her canon weapon. Blake in particular i will probably be making major changes. As is I will eventually have her clones be getting more complicated, to the point where she will hold one blade while a clone fights with the other and they fling each other around using the ribbon. Thats basically the main thing i could think of that would allow Blake to use her semblance in an** _interesting_ **way that has some depth other than just having them take hits, sure it looks cool, but it's kinda one dimensional. I want to expand on the use of semblances in conjunction with their fighting styles and junk.**

 **Oh, and I'm trying to make each character have a sort of fighting style beyond just "This character looks cool". So Weiss stabs precisely, while using dust to block her sides atm. Rose uses wide slashes and is pretty much a full constant assault, always changing momentum to push at the enemy, and I want to make a point that Roses fighting strategy, while good at fighting groups of monsters, is** _terrible_ **at teamwork sence the wide swings cant be stopped easily if someone gets in the way and the slashes mean someone will inevitably get in the way. Which will play into her weapon changes later.**

 **I need to actually get around to doing initial edits on the first chapters, sense i just put them up completely raw without anything other than a spelling check. But im going to wait until chapter 10 sense im still changing some stuff around so i may as well do them all at once for convenience.**

 **I know i had something else i needed to say.. but I cant for the life of me-**

 **Oh! The chapter with the story from a long time ago yadda yadda was not about Klara. A friend read it and called me a "weabu faggot" for making my waifu overpowered (his critiques come from the heart) but alas, my waifu can not take on a country. Also, i might have screwed up her visuals when i described her sence i changed them at some point and i dont know which version i uploaded. But basically she has pale skin, hair, and pinkish red eyes. And her visual theme is a Lab Rat. Which will make sense if i ever manage to finish the damn initiation and show her again.**

 **That actually wasn't what i was supposed to remember. Oh! Figured i would give some clarifications for the strengths of the major league hunters like Qrow in my version. Essentially, normal hunters would fight to a standstill against a team of co-operating students, an elite hunter like Qrow could take on a full team of normal hunters and win. The tier of hunter Qrow is in will include characters like Tyrian, Cinder will be below him before she gets the full maiden powers, but at that level afterwords. Sense im increasing the mortality rate of hunters, essentially hunters that survive to be middle aged will either be retired to raise kids, crippled, or bad asses.**

 **I also made Ozpin much weaker. I figure sense he gave away so much power so many times he would be running on empty, so if he does alot he wouldnt have any sustain for long periods or something.**

 **Oh, and I made the "turn into birds" thing something a Ozpin version generations ago gave the Branwen family a long time ago, instead of something new he gave just Raven and Qrow. Thought it was odd that he gave both of them the power, and I couldnt think of a good enough reason for him to weaken himself by using more real magic. So its genetic now. So hurray, Bird Rose eventually... but like 70 god damn chapters from now... (this is already taking too damn long haha)**

 **So... so damn long... even longer thanks to these BIG FRACKING AUTHORS NOTES! Which hopefully i will remember to edit down when i edit the actual chapters! OF COURSE I WONT REMEMBER! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA**


	9. Tag Team

**Colors back with more. This one is the longest chapter so far. I'm too sleepy to make sure everythings consistent, but heck, thats what edits for for!**

* * *

Volume 1 Chapter 8: Tag Team

* * *

Weiss was still fuming when a massive feather punched through the forest canopy flew by her face. She spun in surprise and saw the feather buried with its entire quill had pierced through the trunk of a tree. It was like someone use aura to propel a javelin at her.

"Nevermore" Rose whispered from her place next to Weiss. Ever since Weiss had her angry outburst Rose had been following behind the girl quietly, not daring to make a sound unless absolutely necessary.

A Nevermore certainly counted as necessary. The massive bird Grimm were incredibly dangerous, usually only a fully trained hunter would be expected to go up against one. Both girls had no clue why the Professors would allow a _Nevermore_ of all things to be present during the initiation. They were serious business. A beowolf is strong, and great at surprising you, but a group of humans with pitchforks can kill a few of them without too much trouble, and they had to do so on more than a few occasions.

But a Nevermore was in a different league entirely.

They flew silently in the sky, usually at night where their pure black plumage made them invisible and would swoop down to grab unsuspecting people with their razor-sharp talons, dragging them screaming through the air. Or if they couldn't get to you for whatever reason, they could whip their feathers and send them flying at you. Everyone had heard the stories of people who escaped being grabbed by a Nevermore and made it to their home, only to be killed when the beast sends a dozen deadly arrows through the roof to kill everyone inside.

The two girls focused their attention on the skies above them. It was almost impossible to see through the tangle of leaves and branches, but the monstrous birds' feathers flew lightning quick, and any little bit of warning they would have could mean the difference between dodging, and having your corpse messily nailed to the forest floor.

Which would be a bad thing.

Weiss felt a soft tap on her shoulder and turned to look at the younger girl. Rose glanced pointedly towards the sky above them and whispered quietly, her voice barely audible over the soft russling of leaves.

"It's over there, follow me, be quiet."

Weiss really wanted to say something snarky to the girl, but she knew Rose was a lot more knowledgeable about Grimm than her, so sucked up her pride and followed the girls lead.

Rose slowly made her way behind a massive fallen tree and lay down on her stomach. She glanced back to make sure Weiss followed her example before slowly, and taking great pains to be _quiet_ , crawled along the wet forest floor. Once they reached the end of the tree the red cloaked girl got to her knees and looked back at where she knew the Grimm to be. She could barely make out its black wings from its perch atop one of the trees.

Qrow had always taught her that if you got pinned down by a Nevermore, the easiest thing to do would be to break line of sight with it, and back away from it using something as cover, in this case trees. Nevermores were powerful Grimm, and excelled at killed people, but typically if they couldn't reach you, they wouldn't go out of their way to chase you down after their initial surprise attack with feathers. Qrow had always compared the lazy birds to gun turrets. Lethal, but they wouldn't bother to hunt you down.

At least when they weren't flying.

Usually.

Rose held Weiss's arm tightly and pulled her alongside her. They put one of the massive tree trunks between them and the Grimm and back away from it, all while taking care to remain out of its sight.

It was almost an hour before Rose felt comfortable with the distance between them and the Nevermore to speak up, Weiss having been too worried about alerting the bird to say anything either.

"Okay we should be good now." The red girl mumbled, causing Weiss to release a massive pent up breath and lean her hands on her knees gasping for air. Who would have thought just walking slowly from a Grimm would be so damned terrifying?

Weiss slowly caught her breath and looked up at the girl who was patiently waiting for her to get under control.

"How the hell did you stay so calm? When you pointed out where it was I thought I was going to vomit or something."

Rose pulled out her compass and checked for north again. She used her toe to scratch a mark into the floor showing where north is show she wouldn't forget and put the compass away again before turning to Weiss and shrugging.

"I'm always scared, one more thing doesn't really make a difference."

The silence stretched awkwardly as Weiss tried to think of anything to say.

"Come on. We need to get going, it's been two hours already and their might be more big-league Grimm around." Rose said while turning and started to walk in the general direction they knew the ruins to be in.

The ground exploded into a towering plume of dirt. Weiss and Rose both went flying to the north. They flipped head over heels before righting themselves, Weiss with her glyphs slowing her down, and Rose stabbed her scythe blade into the soft forest floor to stop all her momentum in an instant.

Rose and Weiss looked at each other wide eyed and slowly backed away from the cloud of falling dirt. The dust barely began to settle when the massive ten-ton scorpion like form of a Deathstalker Grimm barreled out of the cloud. The two girls shared a glance before turning around and sprinting away from the massive chitinous monster as fast as they could.

"CAN'T WE CATCH A FUCKING BREAK!?" The two girls screamed at the top of their lungs as they ran.

* * *

"So, got a partner yet?" Pyrrha said, her voice strangely chipper as she stared up at the hanging form of Jaune.

"Errrm... No, I don't. Thanks again, by the way." The boy pointed up above his shoulder to the spear holding him to the tree.

"No problem partner!" Pyrrha said with a bubbly laugh. She grabbed ahold of the tree and carefully made her way up to Jaune.

It didn't take her very long. Strong arms and legs enhanced by aura ate away the distance in just a few leaping jumps. She gave Jaune a wide smile when she pulled up alongside him, hanging from the tree by one arm, legs dangling.

"How's it hanging?"

Jaune snorted and coughed when he inhaled his own laugh.

"Oh no that was terrible!"

Pyrrha chuckled in return and grabbed a hold of Milo to give the ornate spear a testing yank.

"Umm.. Grab a hold of me when I pull him out, that way you don't, you know. Mess up your landing strategy."

Jaune nodded and reached out towards Pyrrha before a thought crossed his mind and he froze like a deer in the headlights.

"Umm.. Kinda awkward question here, but where exactly am I supposed grab you?"

Pyrrha let herself hang from one arm again and stared in confusion at the boy.

 _What on remnant is he asking that fo-OH!_

Pyrrha giggled hysterically, her face went bright red in an instant. She shook her head furiously to clear her head and reached out and simply grabbed on of the boys arms and lifting his weight up so he could get a hold of Milo.

"Much simpler, hold Milo, I'll yank it, and then I can hold you up using it!"

 _Much less awkward for everyone involved._ She thought to herself. Not that she didn't like Jaune, its just she didn't know where the handsome boy came from and didn't want to offend his delicate, i.e. non Mistralian, sensibilities.

"Aaaah gotcha. Good plan." Jaune said and he put his weight onto the spear. Well it was already on the spear, but instead of his jacket it was his actual arms. Much preferable.

Pyrrha put both her legs against the tree and got ready to heave it out.

"Okay 1, 2, 3, GO!"

Her aura flashed as she focused her strength on her legs and pushed against the tree. The bark groaned and cracked beneath her feat for a moment, but with a loud crack and a pop, the spear broke free and Jaune weight was entirely on her.

The redhead let out a victorious shout and swung started to swing Jaune so she could toss him onto a nearby branch.

"Ummm.. Pyrrha, what's that?"

Pyrrha stopped her swinging and looked down at Jaunes face. His bright blue eyes were wide as dinner plates focused on whatever was behind her.

"I don't know, describe it to MEEEEEEEEEE!"

The partners both let out a scream as a massive Nevermore grabbed them both in its talons and carried them off into the air.

* * *

When Yang and Blake finally broke free of the forest and got their first look at the ruins, they couldn't be happier.

Yang immediately broke into a sprint, jumping up and down and cheering the entire way to the small formations of pillars. They formed a small ring on the edge of a cliff, with what must have been a hundred meter drop down to more forest before the actual city ruins could be seen.

Blake took it only a bit slower. Choosing to jog over instead of run, and only gave a single cheer. Yang's good cheer was quite infectious.

Blake slowed to a stop beside Yang, who was staring out over the cliff at the massive towering ruins below them.

As far as the eye could see, towering stone buildings and walkways littered the landscape. All built with an architecture no longer present on Remnant. Arching supports and domed roofs were crumbling and laying on the ground, far below the towering heights they once reached.

"What is this place?" Yang said softly. It felt wrong to speak up, like she was at someones grave.

"I don't know what it's called, but the books I've read say it's what Vale used to be, hundreds or thousands of years ago. They think it got overrun by the Grimm during riots. They didn't have the type of technology and dust we have now, so when the wall fell," She pointed off in to the distance where Yang could just barely make out the crumbled remains of a wall filling the far end of the velley where it opened up to the world, "Most people were trapped inside and died with the city."

Yang's eyes went wide and her breath hitched.

"Holy shit. And entire city? Just like that?"

Blake nodded and grabbed the blondes shoulder, turning her away from the ruins and back towards the small circle of pillars.

"Yeah, I guess that's why they make us go out here, to see what the stakes are."

The two girls stood silently. Both musing over their own thoughts on the fallen city and the weight that seemed to press down on their shoulders that wasn't their just minutes ago.

Yang wasn't one to let the visual reminder of the regular remise of entire countries and the deaths of tens of millions of people get her in the dumps however. So she forced a smile on her face and walked back over to the pillars.

"So are these the relics?"

On each of the pillars were little chess pieces in different colors. One of each type of piece in black and white.

"I assume so. They don't exactly match the décor." Blake deadpanned.

Yang chuckled, happy to be hearing an actual joke after taking in the depressing scenery.

"So, white horse good for you?"

Blake raised an eyebrow.

"It's called a knight Yang."

Yang ignored the correction and lifted the piece high over her head.

"Okay white horsey it is!" She shouted loudly.

Blake shook her head with a smile at the ever excited Yang.

"I guess we better going or we are going to be out here after da-what the shit?" Blake stepped around Yang and looked at the forest.

"Huh?" Yang turned and gave the woods a scrutinizing glance. Was it just her, or were the trees, vanishing?

A red and white blur shout out of the forest at breakneck speed, eating away the distance between the edge of the forst and the ruins in a matter of seconds.

The blur slowed to a stop in front of the pair, revealing it to be Rose and Weiss. The red girl fell to her knees, gasping for air, dropping the white-haired girl she had been carrying. After twenty minutes of getting chased by the deathstalker, Weiss just hadn't had the speed to outrun it, so Rose was forced to carry her for the rest of the way.

All 40 minutes of it.

 _Kill me now._ Rose thought as she held back the vomit trying its hardest to fight its way out.

"Rose!" Yang shouted and pulled her sister into a bone crushing hug. "Thank goodness you are alright, I know, I know, you can do things yourself, but I worry!" The blonde continued to ramble on while echoing pops came from the small girls' bones. For the second time in as many days the red girl was at risk of being hugged to death by her sister.

"Y-Yang can't b-bre-breath!"

Weiss and Blake stared at the pare. Blake had a happy smile on her face, while Weiss looked anctius and was gripping Myrtenaster tightly and bouncing from foot to foot like she was preparing to run away.

"Are the relics here? We _really_ need to get out of here, NOW!"

Yang let go of her sister who flopped onto the floor like a fish. The blond pointed to pedestals and the pieces on top of them.

"Yeah, they are right over there, what's the hurry, already sick of my being my wittle sisters best friend?"

Weiss ignored the remark and ran to the nearest pedestal and grabbed a black knight piece. She shoved it deep in her jacket pocket. Yang looked down at her sister and tapped her with the toe of her boot to get her attention.

"Okay... Rose, what's going on?"

Rose was still gasping for breath and couldn't muster a response.

"Okay Rose, we got our relic, time to get the heck out!"

She ran over to the red clad girl and pulled her to her feat. They shared a quick nod and were about to start sprinting away when Yang finally got tired of no one telling her what was wrong.

"Can someone fricking tell me what's got you two so damned worked up already!?" The girl shouted. Her hair was beginning to glow and the air around her heated up significantly.

Rose and Weiss spun around and opened their mouths in tandem when the Deathstalker burst from the tree line.

"THAT'S WHAT!" The pair yelled and drew readied their weapons.

Yangs mouth dropped open in shock at the massive fucking scorpion Grimm sprinting towards them.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me..."

Blake pulled her cleaver from its place on its back and Yang flicked her wrists to expand Ember Celica back over her fists.

"Anyone got a plan?" Blake said. She had never learned how to deal with a scorpion monster the side of a small house, with any luck, one of the other would have a good answer.

Weiss shook her head, but Yang and Rose gave curt nods. Rose kept her eyes on the

"Deathstalkers are all frontal attacks, they can't hit you if you are behind them. So the standard method is to distract them with someone especially sturdy while the rest go behind for the kill."

Yang turned to the rest of the group and frowned, "But we don't exactly have anyone sturdy enough for that. I can take some punishment, but nothing close to what a fricking _Deathstalker_ can dish out."

"I can use my semblance to dodge, but I don't think I can do it enough to stop... that" said Blake.

"My Glyphs are a no go too."

Rose pulled her hood up over her head.

"I _should_ be able to distract it. I'm fast enough to evade it, no guarantees though."

"Sounds like a plan!" Yang shouted and the girls split up.

Rose ran straight towards the massive creature while the others took longer flanking routs. Her cloak billowed behind her as she approached the beast, scythe resting on her shoulders.

The Deathstalker swung its massive right claw at her as she drew close. Rose slashed Red Dragon at the claw and used the force from it to deflect her off to the side. The other claw came down towards her face and she twirled out of the way. The claw crashed through the trailing cloud of rose petals and hit the ground with an earth-shaking thud.

 _One second of dodging, and I'm not dead yet. That's... good._

The Grimm reared back and its claw tore out of the ground. It thundered forward after the small girl as she flashed away in a quick burst of speed and its massive golden stinger shot forward.

Rose didn't have enough time to plant her feet and dive out of the way. Instead she went limp and fell backwards, the deadly stinger passing harmlessly over top of her. Before the creature could take advantage of her position on the ground she flicked her scythe so the bladed end faced the Deathstalker and pressed the trigger.

Click.

WHOOOOOSH!

A jet of orange flame shot out the cylinder at the top of the scythe. The ground under the monster charred black in an instant, the intense flames hungrily devouring anything they touched. The Grimm reared back and brought its stinger down like a club on the offending human in front of it who had so rudely set it alight.

By then though Rose was already safely out of its reach. The force of the flames coming from Red Dragon were more than enough to push the girls light body away from the beast.

"ANY TIME YOU WANT TO HIT IT WOULD BE FINE!" She screamed as she got back to her feet. The fire on the Grimm had already extinguished, and it barreled towards her fast as ever.

As if on cue, the Deathstalker shook and slid sideways for several meters when Yang hit it like a flaming meteor. Another impact shook the Grimm when Weiss' ice dust activated on the opposite side, encasing its legs in a block of ice.

From the back of the creature, Blake ran in and slashed repeatedly at the base of the stinger. Her blade made some marks, but it wasn't enough to stop the creature from swinging its stinger to the side and smacking Yang away like a flaming baseball.

"YANG!" Rose tried to run to her sister, but a claw shot at her face and she had to dive out of the way.

"Black! Check Yang!" she yelled. Weiss was working on freezing the other side of the monsters' legs, and she couldn't stop distracting it or it would hit her as well.

Rose put everything out of her mind and focused purely on evading the Grimms rapid fire attacks. The Deathstalker had managed to send Yang flying with a single shot and Rose was nowhere near as sturdy as her brawler of a sister. If it hit her, she would be lucky to get away with all her limbs.

It was the longest minute of her life. She spun and twirled around the lightning quick strikes, pushing her semblance farther than she had before. Her wrists were just starting to burn with pain at pumping out so much aura when another blast of cold ran over her and the other side of the scorpion was encased in ice.

Rose jumped back quickly from the small mountain of ice.

"Did we win?" Weiss said as she nervously stepped around the frozen Grimm.

Blake and a crazy frazzle haired Yang ran over from the side.

"Holy shit. I think we did." said the blonde.

KKRRREEEEEEEE!

"Spoke too soon."

The ground shook for what must have been the hundredth time that day when a massive Nevermore hit the ground face first.

The four girls froze and stared at the new massive deadly monster. How in the hell were they going to beat this one too?

"Pyrrha, am I alive? I don't feel alive." A voice came from behind the bird.

"It would appear so. Here, I'll pinch you to make sure."

"OUCH!" The first voice shouted.

"We are definitely alive!"

The four girls stared dumbly as Jaune and Pyrrha stumbled on shaky legs around the Grimm and into their line of sight.

"Oh, Hi Rose! And everyone else too I guess." Jaune said with a quick wave and a tired smile.

Rose immediately forgot about all her tiredness. She stomped a foot angrily and stalked away from the group, mumbling curses under her breath.

Blake and Weiss approached the two while Yang went to talk to her raging sister.

"What... How did you... Explain!" The raven-haired girl got out. Weiss was just a stuttering mess.

Jaune froze under the scrutiny of the two girls and tagged in Pyrrha to do the talking.

Pyrrha stowed her weapons away and put her hands on her hips before giving a quick explanation of how they got nabbed by the nevermore from a tree. It didn't take them too long to get the bird to open its claws and that allowed Pyrrha to crawl up its back at attack its head while Jaune attacked its wings.

Before long, the massive bird had lost control and smashed into the ground!

"Wow." Weiss and Blake said in time with each other.

"Oh, where are the relics, have you found any yet?" Jaune piped up once the red head finished her explanation.

Blake pointed to the pedestals on the cliff and he quickly jogged over, grabbed a rook, and ran back.

"Less a 'relic' and more 'chess set I found in my recently deceased grandmas attic' or something." Pyrrha said with a chuckle as she examined the piece.

"So you all managed to Hunt a Deathstalker? Wow, makes me feel less proud of the Nevermore."

Blake and Weiss nodded and went over the details of their fight.

"They aren't dead." Roses soft voice came from behind the black and white pair.

"Say what?" Pyrrha said with an eyebrow raised, her tall form allowed her to see over the tops of the two girls' heads and see the small girl she didn't much like behind them.

"They aren't smoking." The girl said again, scythe blade trailing on the ground as she walked towards them. Yang was walking alongside her and nodded in confirmation.

"Yeah, they aren't smoking, so they can't be dead. Scorpio over there is probably just frozen, and Birdo is just dazed or unconscious."

To Roses surprise Jaune spoke up and actually said something intelligent.

"Then we need to clear out before they get back up right? If what we already did won't kill them, fat chance of us having anything more to dish out at them."

The girls all gave quick nods.

"Makes since." said Yang.

"Wait everyone," Weiss said with a hand raised to get their attention, "This is the end of the initiation right, every student will be heading here. We can't just leave two massive Grimm waiting here for them. If a lone pair showed up and they ran into this they wouldn't stand a chance!"

Yangs eyes widened and she stared at the two small hills the Grimm made.

"Shit. That's a good point. But beyond luring them away I don't think we could-"

KKKKREEEEEEEEE!

The six hunters in training flinched and covered their ears. The until then unmoving Nevermore lifted its white plated head and let loose another keening wail.

Everyone turned to run from the rising bird Grimm when a crash came from the ice encased Deathstalker.

The large blocks of ice that had been holding the beast still burst into millions of shards. The Grimm stomped and tore at the ground in a mad rage.

"We are totally fucked." Said Yang.

"Rush the Nevermore, it can't fly!" Jaune screamed.

And so they did.

The six initiates ignored the Deathstalker entirely and ran towards the Nevermore. The massive bird tried to hit them with its wings, but they were bent at odd angles and couldn't move themselves properly. The bird let out another pained screech and fell over as it lost its balance, giving them a path to escape.

They made it past the nevermore and made it back to the ruins, but both Grimm were in hot pursuit. The bird was slower and tried to shoot feathers at them from a distance, but the broken wings meant it couldn't aim at all so they all went wide. The deathstalker however, was simply angry, and trying to run them down like a speeding truck.

They then discovered their predicament. The way they ran meant they had to run _towards_ the ruins and to the _massive cliff_. A dead end.

Literally.

They spun to face the enraged monsters. They knew they had no real way out, but they had to try.

"IM QUEEN OF THE CASTLE! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!" A high-pitched shout range over the chorus of chaos the Grimm were causing. The biggest Ursa any of them had ever seen ran headlong into the Deathstalker.

Already moving at full speed towards the edge, both Grimm were sent tumbling over.

"Never again Nora."

"Oh, C'mon Ren, it was fun!"

"No, it wasn- BIRD!"

The two newcomers came running between the Nevermores legs towards the ruins.

The two were an odd pair.

The girl had orange hair, and turquoise eyes with a crazed smile that was just a tad off-putting. She held a large hammer in one hand as she ran and was wearing a white armored top with a pink skirt.

A combat skirt to be precise.

The other was a boy with shoulder length black hair and a pink highlight that reminded Rose of Weiss's. he was wearing clothes far too complicated for Rose to be bothered to understand. So, she just filed them away as wearing a green shirt with ridiculous trimming with white pants.

"Need a hand?" Ren said softly as the duo got to the ruins with the rest of them.

The words shocked the team out of their, "Holy shit we almost just died holy shit holy shit" trance and back to reality.

Everyone was silent for a moment until Rose forced herself to speak up.

"Yes, we need to kill the Nevermore. It won't stop chasing up now that we pissed it off."

The group gave quick nods and hefted their weapons.

"Anyone got any good ideas?" Blake asked nobody in particular.

"Yeah." said Rose, voice firm and devoid of its usual heat, "If everyone can keep it distracted for a minute, I just need someone to keep me from launching early."

"If you are using your rocket... scythe... thing I think I can help with that." Blake responded.

Rose explained her idea quickly as they started luring the Nevermore closer to the forest. Once everyone had the general idea, she and Blake split off from the rest and ran at full speed towards the trees.

"Okay so how are you going to hold me back?" Rose finally got arround to asking Blake.

Blake answered by pulling the cleaver from her back and holding it in two hands. A metallic clang rang out as she yanked the handle sharply, leaving her with a short katana in one hand and a slightly more awkward to hold cleaver in the other, connected by a black ribbon.

"Oooooh that's so cool how do you get it to-" Rose slapped herself, no time to get hung up on cool weapons.

In the background they could hear the sounds of the team fighting the angry Nevermore. Despite being wounded the beast was doing more than a good job of keeping the hunters in training at bay. Every time they would almost manage to get a good hit in, a feather would fly at them making them jump back, or a buffet of wind would push them away. Jaune had taken charge somehow of the group, and was directing them on when to attack, and shouting out whenever the beast was about to blindside someone.

Rose was absolutely baffled.

But she had work to do.

She took Red Dragon in both hands and flipped it upside down so the blade was towards the ground and gave the cylinder a short kick. It wasn't visible, but the small nozzle that normally let the red dust out sealed shut when the emergency stop was triggered

So now the heat couldn't escape. But that didn't mean she couldn't ignite the red dust.

"Ready?" Blake asked from behind her. While Rose was toying with her weapon she had been setting up her part of the operation. the long ribbon stretched between two of the largest, sturdiest trees they could find. One end attached to Gambol, the cleaver buried deep in the tree, and the other leading to Shroud, the Katana also sheathed in a tree.

A perfect reverse slingshot.

Rose nodded affirmative and Blake held the girl up so she could get a good grip on the ribbon. She couldn't just let the blade of her scythe latch onto it to hold her or the pressure from the acceleration would cut through it.

Instead, the two girls had to hold Rose back as long as possible while the cylinder super-heated.

Rose wrapped a leg around the pole of the scythe and planted the other foot on the blade. Both her hands held on tight to the ribbon. At her signal, Blake pressed the trigger.

Immediately a high-pitched whine overlay everything.

In seconds, the cylinder was glowing a fierce red and the nozzle, despite being tightly sealed was forced open just enough for a thin jet of superheated dust to escape, scorching the grass and trees with a blast of hot air.

Blake pulled on the two long ribbons she had tied around Roses ankles and got into her position. She needed to be about fifty meters away, in line with Rose and the Nevermore, in order to help hold her back and too aim the girl at it.

"Thirty Seconds!" Rose shouted as the high wailing of the straining super-heated metal grew louder. Thirty was pushing it though. Too much longer than they risked the entire assembly simply exploding and killing everyone within a hundred meters.

Already the strain on her arms, having to push against the ribbon to keep form flying off into the air was beginning to make her entire body ache.

"OKAY IM HERE!" Blake shouted and pulled hard on both her ribbons, alleviating some of the stress.

The fight with the nevermore was not going any better. As the fight went on the weren't doing much actual damage too it. Mostly just annoying it and keeping it distracted, so its natural healing began to repair the damage that they had already done to it.

"TWENTY SECONDS!"

The nevermore flung out its now fully operational wings. Razor sharp feathers shot in all directions. Jaune and Pyrrha took the brunt of the impacts of the team on their sheilds, allowing yang and Nora to jump in and hit it in the legs.

 _Fifteen._ Rose said in her head, straining too hard to open her mouth.

The nevermore bit down at Ren, who neatly sidestepped out of the way, firing his dual machine pistols at its eyes as he sprinted out of its reach Nora did not take the attempted murder of her friend well and swung her hammer at the monsters' face.

 _Ten._

The nevermore screeched loudly and flapped both its wings, sending them all flying with a massive buffet of wind.

 _Nine._

The bird reared back and hunched down, wings preparing to flap.

 _Eight._

It shot up into the air and hovered above the Six would be hunters. Each mighty flap of its wings sent dozens of Feathers shooting towards them.

 _Seven._

Jaune caught an arrow square on his shield and was sent flying

 _Six._

Nora turned her hammer into a grenade launcher to return fire, but the Nevermore immediately focused on her.

 _Five._

Ren tackled Nora out of the way of the storm of feathers.

 _Four._

Weiss used her Glyphs to through Yang up towards the beasts' face, but the angry bird roared and smashed them both into the ground.

 _Three_.

Pyrrha fired at the nevermores face to draw its attention away from the others.

 _Two_

Rose saw the massive bird swoop down towards the redhead.

 _One._

Rose closed her eyes and let out her breath.

Zero.

Rose kicked the cylinder releasing the emergency shutoff.

Black let go of both her ribbons, and Rose let the ribbon slip form her exhausted arms.

The nozzle opened wide, the superheated and super pressurized dust devoured all the air it could find in one massive rear facing explosion that dug into the ground and dug a massive straight hole in the ground. The red dust burnt hot enough it actually managed to ignite the rocks and dirt.

But Rose didn't see any of this.

Because Rose wasn't near the forest anymore.

She didn't fly towards the nevermore. She didn't go sailing off into the distance.

There was simply a moment where she was holding onto Gambol Shrouds ribbon, and another moment where she was crashing into the walls of the cliff far into the distance, nothing in-between.

Every single remaining spark of her aura shot out of her body, and her head lit up with a blinding light that seemed to set every nerve ablaze. Too Rose it felt like she was engulfed in flames for hours, but when her vision returned she could see the two halves of the nevermore split apart and come crashing to the ground.

 _How am I still conscious?_ Rose thought as she looked down from where she was wedged in the massive crack in the cliffside she appeared to have caused.

Just as she finished that thought, her eyes flared in agony and everything went black.

* * *

 **AN: And thats the end of initiation! Next chapter will be where the teams get their names, and than some stuff with Qrow and Klara. Should be fun.**

 **For once i dont have much to say at the end. I really liked the idea of superchjarging a pressure container to make it explode and use Rose like a piece of shrapnel to kill the Nevermore.**

 **As you may have noticed I am making the tiers of Grimm stronger. So Nevermores and Deathstalkers are actual major league threats for a while until the characters get stronger.**

 **Oh, and in my version of RWBY, the power of your Aura comes from everywhere, but flows most effectively through your palms and your Eyes, hence why i describe her wrists burning at one point.**


	10. Rites of Remembrance

**Colors here once again. Bit of a dirty chapter this time, dialogue heavy which I always do pretty poorly on first drafts. Next chapter will be the last one before I go back and do some edits of the first 11 or so chapters. Should only take a day or two for the first run through and fleshing out, which is all im doing for now. I prefer to come back regularly to old chapters as I change and adjust thing on a schedule so im not constantly changing things and never moving forward, but also making things more consistant and covering up the absolute crap my first drafts tend to be.**

 **But i digress, time for a chapter.**

* * *

Volume 1 Chapter 9: Rites of Remembrance

* * *

Roses head felt like it was going to split open when she slowly became aware of her surroundings.

She could tell she was lying on her back on the ground, and all around her deafening voices were talking.

"Don't worry Miss Xiao Long, your sister will be perfectly fine. Her aura popped and the recoil hit her hard, but nothing a little time won't fix."

Who was that? It sounded like it was coming through a tunnel from far away, then echoing around in her head. Just as the thundering echoes began to die down another, this time more shrill and feminine, burned through her head.

"C'mon Yang, Professor Ozpin knows what he's doing, you can calm down."

Rose groaned and tried to open her eyes.

"GYAAAH!" She screamed and shut her eyes tight again.

"Rose!" Yang's voice shouted and Rose felt her sister next to her, holding her head.

"My apologies Miss Rose. Miss Xiao Long, right now your sister is likely extremely sensitive to light and sound, she could probably use something to cover her eyes, as well as some quiet."

The voices lowered to a whisper, for which Rose was eternally thankful.

She pulled her hood from where it was balled up under her head up and over her eyes and she felt something rectangular and hard get pushed into her hand. A quiet whisper she could make out as Professor Goodwitch came from her side.

"Eat this Miss Rose, it will help with your headache and get your aura back."

Rose nodded, wincing when the movement sent another lance of pain through her skull. Yang and the others started asking Ozpin more questions as she put the item up to her mouth and took a small bite.

It was a chocolate bar.

Heavenly!

Unseen by her, the two professors and seven students surrounding her stared curiously as she let out a moan of ecstasy.

Rose shoveled the rest of the bar into her mouth and sighed. The sugar shot into her aura starved system and in short moments the edge was already being taken off of her headache.

"That's much better." She sighed and leaned back on the grass and smiled contently.

"WAIT! WHAT HAPPENED!" She shot up to her feet and yanked the cloth off of her eyes. To her left stood the two Professors, Ozpin who was smirking for some reason but then again, half the time Rose saw the man he was smiling like a moron, and Goodwitch who was pinching the bridge of her nose between two fingers in exasperation. On her right were the seven she went through the initiation with, faces all filled with worry.

Except for Ren, his face was only half filled.

They were back on the cliff overlooking the forest where they first started the test. The path Yang had carved was clearly visibly along with a few other areas where it looked like the forest had been set on fire at some point.

Yang jumped forward and pulled Rose into a backbreaking, or in this case head breaking, hug.

"Rose we were so worried! You hit the cliff and passed out and we had to carry you all the way out of the forest because Ozpin is a prick just like Qrow said! NEVER DO THAT AGAIN!" The blonde took a heavy breath and shook her little sister before setting her back down on her feet.

"Yang, my head still really hurts, so please don't do that." Rose mumbled while pressing her palms against her forehead.

"Theatrics notwithstanding, you should all be pleased to learn that you passed the initiation."

Yang's face paled when she realized she just called the Headmaster a prick right in front of him.

"GAH IM SORRY! IT'S QROW FAULT! BLAME HIM!"

The six other initiates laughed as Rose tackled her sister to the ground and began to pummel her.

"GAH! ROSE! ROSE IM SORRY! NO MORE YELLING! NO MORE HIT-ACK!"

* * *

Hours later all the passing initiates were brought to an auditorium for the announcement of their teams. Roses head was finally feeling almost as good as new when the shriek of a microphone came over the loudspeakers almost sent her into a coma. She leaned onto a slightly bruised Yang to keep on her feet while her head cleared.

So, she missed the first few teams being called.

"Russel Thrush. Cardin Winchester. Dove Bronzewing. Sky Lark. The four of you retrieved the bishop pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as Team CRDL, led by... Cardin Winchester!"

The team of four boys cheered and the already noisy room erupted again.

 _Please stop, I'm going to die._

The four boys stepped off the stage and took their seats before Ozpin waved the next group forward.

"Jaune Arc. Lie Ren. Pyrrha Nikos. Nora Valkyrie. The four of you retrieved the rook pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as Team JNPR."

Yang cheered along with everyone else, Weiss pumped her fist in the air and even Blake clapped politely, a smile on her face.

"Led by... Jaune Arc!"

 _You have got to be shitting me._

Jaune for his part looked just as confused as Rose. Although instead of his jaw hitting the floor like the red cloaked girl he chose to stutter like a moron.

"Huh? L-Led by...?"

Ozpin ignores the boys' confusion, and Roses indignant stuttering at _vomit boy_ being a leader of anything and leans in toward Jaune.

"Congratulations, young man."

The stunned young man barely has a chance to react before Pyrrha pulled him into a hug and spun him around before plopping him back on his feet. He stumbled dizzily for a moment until Nora swooped in underneath him to lift him up on her shoulders to carry him to their seats.

"And finally: Blake Belladonna. Rose Xiao Long. Weiss Schnee. Yang Xiao Long. The four of you retrieved the knight pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as Team RWBY. Led by Rose Xiao Long!"

Rose jerks upright from where she was glaring at Jaune and looks at the shit eating grin on Ozpins face. Her a leader? How could he... why would he... WHY!?

Her silent internal sputtering was interrupted by her sister thumping her on the back hard enough to make her stumble forward..

"I'm so proud of you!"

 _I changed my mind, waiting two more years sounds like a good plan._

* * *

Later than evening, after all the students of Beacon were settled nice and snug in their new dorms, a little girl got thrown headlong out of a bar.

"Stop trying to sneak in brat!"

Klara slid across the street and a trashcan, knocking it over and spilling its contents over the sidewalk. She jumped to her feet and began to shout and rant at the still open bar door.

"Hey you prick! I'm legal age to drink alone weather you like it or not! You can't just throw people out because they fucking look young! That's unfair to short people!"

She waved her arms over her head and stomped her feat like a petulant child.

"You're younger than my daughter yah snot nosed brat and she can barely hold her sugar, let alone vodka! Now stop yah damned cussing and go home to yah parents!"

Klara's face went bright red and steam shot out of her ears.

"Sh-SHITFACE!"

The door slammed shut.

 _This was so much easier in Vacuo..._

Vacuo bars were less concerned with pesky things like drinking age laws, and far more concerned with preventing drunken hunters from burning the place to the ground. Mostly because in general not only was the percentage of people with aura in Vacuo a lot higher than other nations, they also tended to attract the least savory hunters.

Speaking of unsavory Hunters.

"Whoa Kiddo, aren't you a little young to be sneaking into bars?" a gravelly slightly slurred, and far too sarcastic sounding voice came from behind her.

 _Wait a fucking minute._

Klara spun around in a flash sending her hair flying about crazily.

"QROW!"

The petite girl stared in open mouthed shock at the red eyed, bedraggled man who looked like he slept in dress clothes for some reason. The last time she saw the bird-brained man was before she left to Vacuo sixteen years ago. And the last time they talked was when, unbeknown to him, he had called her just as she boarded the airship, moments before she could throw away her scroll.

"WHAT!? Klara?!" Qrow jumped back and pointed at her, posed on one leg half twisted away like an idiot.

 _Well he's just as overly dramatic as ever._

He pulled out his flask and glared at it angrily, "You sly bastard, making me hallucinate! I knew I should never have bought that Valien dust infused wine!"

Klara rubbed the back of her head nervously. This Qrow was almost nothing like the one she left. For starters she never saw Qrow drink before, that was usually Summers shtick.

But then again, Klara didn't drink back then either.

He shook his head and leaned down until his face was at the same level as hers and quinted into her eyes.

"Shit. It really is you."

"Yeah bird brain. I'm alive. Now before we do the hole emotional meeting and get teary eyed, I really need a fucking drink."

He opened his mouth to respond but she interrupted him with a raised finger.

"And before you say it, I have already been thrown out of six different bars, two clubs, and a ABC store. Nobody will sell me anything other than soda and juice."

Qrow's head tilted thoughtfully as he leaned back to his full height towering over Klara.

"Well why don't you just go to a Hunter bar? They don't do anything but check your ID on the way in to make sure you are registered."

Klara stomped her foot angrily. Vacuo didn't have any sort of Hunter only establishment so she had completely forgotten Vale had them at all!

She dived forward and latched onto Qrows midsection. He flinched back from her crazed drooling face with eyes opened just a bit too wide to not be a nutcase.

"GAH! WHERE ARE THEY!? TAKE ME!"

Qrow laughed and pointed down the street, "Geeze I hope I don't look like half the alcoholic you do right now in front of my nieces."

* * *

Klara had to admit, compared to the bars in Vacuo, the Hunter Bar Qrow took her too was a pretty fucking nice place.

Like. Way too fucking nice.

"How the hell do they afford all this?!"

Klara exclaimed as she slid into a booth across from Qrow. The entire place was absolutely beautiful. Carved dark woods, massive holoscreens showing sports and Hunter oriented advertising for weapons and kit. The center of the room was a massive U shaped bar crowded by rowdy hunters doing their best to flag down the bartenders. Dozens of booths lined the walls half filled with tired eyed hunters, a few of which were nursing wounds.

Everything looked way too expensive for a bunch of grimy, dirty, blood and mud-covered Hunters to be using.

Hell, according to a sign on the door they even have medical staff and a weapon forge on the premises.

Qrow leaned back casually in his chair and flagged down a waitress.

"Same way they fund the schools."

"Extortion and kidnapping?" Klara quipped as she tried to figure out how the holographic menu on the surface of the table worked. Try as she might she couldn't get the sucker to flip right-side up.

"No, more like taxes. Plus these types of joints sell at cost and get rebated later by the council."

Qrow reached forward and pressed two fingers against the surface of the table and twisted them. Huzzah! Klara could read the menu now!

"Yay. Taxes. Makes me miss Vacuo."

Qrow leaned forward and crossed his arms on the table.

"So that's where you've been this whole time? Vacuo? If I recall correctly you once said "Fuck that backwater shithole, I would rather die before letting myself burn to death in the fucking desert"."

The small girl chuckled and nodded confirmation. The waitress chose that moment to finally finish dealing with a team of four young and rowdy hunters, two girl and two boys who couldn't be more than a year out of Academy themselves.

"Hey Livia, how's the bar doing?" said Qrow to the pretty waitress. The woman looked to be in her twenties, with tanned skin and bright blue hair and matching eyes. All brought together by a massive smile showing off perfect white teeth.

"Good evening to you too Qrow. Cute kid. You takin' in strays? I never took you for the parenting type."

Qrow threw back his head and belted out laughter while Klara grabbed hold of the table and started bashing her head into it.

Klara glared at Qrow and his laughter cut out at the sight of the girl who was a second away from going over the table to get him.

"No no no she's not mine. This is Klara, she graduated Beacon the same time as me. Her aura was awakened early so it stunted her growth."

That's why unlocking a child's aura is not only discouraged, it's illegal outside of very special circumstances. Being stuck as a child forever can be the least of your problems.

Guilt assaulted the waitresses face and she started sputtering out an apology. Klara let her death grip on the table go and waved away the womans embarrassed apologies.

"It's fine. I'm used to it. Was just surprised anyone could mistake Qrow for a father."

Livia's glowing smile returned full blast.

"I fear for the day Qrow is entrusted with a child's wellbeing."

"Pretty sure I should feel insulted, but I concede the point."

Klara listened as Qrow and Livia chatted for a few minutes before the topic finally came back to drinking.

"Kay Qrow, got more patrons to get to, whad'ya need?"

Qrow looked to Klara, "Depends, you done it lately?"

She shook her head. "Not sense I left."

"Then you have a lot of catching up to do."

Livia nodded sadly and waved to the bar.

"We'll get the rounds out as you need them."

Her smile was forced when she walked away.

Qrow and Klara sat in companionable silence until Livia set a metal tray lined with a dozen or so shot glasses filled with different colors of liquid onto the table. Qrow slid the tray between the two of them so each had easy access to a row. He lifted one of the shots off the tray and set if off to the side away from the others.

"I drank one for you a few years after you left." He said as way of explanation

It was an old custom. Before scrolls, and the CCT's Hunters were often away from civilization for months or even years, and news took even long to travel. Any time the Hunters of old found themselves someplace where they could get the news of their fellows, they would take a single shot for every Hunter they knew who died.

Hunter's died often, sometimes they would leave for a week and come back having to drink for a dozen lost comrades.

It hadn't gotten much better with time.

"Remember the first time we did this Qrow?"

Qrow nodded and lifted a shot off the tray and held it up to the light appreciating it's clarity.

"Yeah. Junior team PYRE got wiped along with a teacher our first year. Not exactly the news you want the week before your own mission."

The silence loomed once again until Klara shook the memories from her head.

"Let's get on with it then. First shot for the ones we forgot."

They clinked the shots together between them and knocked them back. Qrow shuddered at the unusually pure alcohol, much different than the weird trash he normally had.

"GAAAAAH!" Klara's entire body shook as the liquid fire burned its way down her throat. Coughs wracked her little body causing Qrow to reach over the table and pound her on the back.

"Still can't hold them huh?"

Klara hacked and choked out a response, "I' can _cough_ keep them down j-just fine. Get- _cough-_ ing them down never gets easier for me though."

"So who are we starting with?" Klara asked. She set the empty shot off to the side and picked up the next in order. This one was filled with a lime green liquid.

Qrow stared curiously at his shot which looked to be full of liquid chocolate.

"You ever do it for your teammates?"

She shook her head no and raised her glass towards him.

"Chrysa Baker. Goliath"

They both took a shot, this time Klara managed to keep from making a scene.

"Heulyn Goodwitch. Creeps"

Klara downed a red shot that froze in her throat and Qrow swallowed a yellow one that tasted like popcorn.

"And last but not least, Lily Talgren. Wyvern."

Another shot. This one tasted like burnt meat.

Happy memories spent at Beacon with team CHLK ran circles through Klaras mind. Chrysa, their flamboyant leader. She always had a dozen plans going into any situation. Even the time Klara forgot to study and had to cheat on a test she inexplicably had a plan ready to get them off the hook if found out. Heulyn, the quiet blonde who always seemed to live in her sisters' shadow. Until she whupped her sisters butt in front of millions of people during the Vytal festival in their second year that is. And finally, Lily, who spent more time inventing overly complicated board games and trying to get all the dorm to play them than she actually spent studying. She still managed to score the best of their team on every test.

They were a good team. Not the best, they never even made it to the semi-finals of the Vytal tournament the two times they entered, but they were solid all around.

And now they were all dead.

 _And it's all my fucking fault._

"You aren't going to die of alcohol poisoning are you tyke?" Qrow said pulling Klara's attention back from her self-loathing.

"No, I have too much aura for that. I'm not even feeling a buzz yet."

He nodded and eyed the line of shots.

"They'll never take me seriously again if they see a kid drink me under the table."

Klara laughed and swatted at Qrow playfully, "Don't worry bird-brain, I'll play it up for you to protect your precious reputation."

"So why did you leave Klara? You could have come to us. Rae and Tai would have loved to take you in."

Klara shrugged and ran a hand through her hair.

"I dunno. After everything that happened I was just tired. Tired of hunting Grimm. Seeing friends die. Tired of Ozpin telling me important things immediately _after_ they could have been useful..." Her voice heated and the table creaked under pressure as she squeezed it tightly, "I just got so damn tired of everything."

Qrow reached across the table to pat her on the head. She shook silently and leaned into his palm. After a few minutes of quiet head rubbing she calmed enough to take the next shot.

"Sapp. Bandits."

Klara didn't know him well but met him a few times when she visited Mistral for the Vytal Festival.

"Do you know who's next Klara?"

She nodded and quickly downed the next glass without looking at it. Qrow followed suit a moment later.

"Summer Rose." Klara mumbled and lay her head on the table.

"How'd you know? You left weeks before she passed."

She chuckled morosely and enjoyed the pleasant tingle in her head as the alcohol finally started to work its way past her aura.

"I saw her staring at me a day ago. Almost had a heart attack when I saw a miniature Raven with Sunny's eyes staring at me."

"You met my niece?"

"Neice? Wait. Raven and Tai's second kid got her eyes? What the fuck are the odds of that?"

"How did you meet her?"

"When I got back a day ago I bought a new scroll at a dust shop. She was their reading when the place got robbed."

"Oh, so that's how she got into Beacon early. I spoke to Oz about it a few months ago but he never gave me a solid answer on it."

"Typical. I left before it was robbed, but apparently Glynda saw me on the security tape and chased me down. Dragged me back to Ozpin in wrapped in my own chains if you can believe it."

"I can believe it. She didn't exactly take Heulyn's death and her last team member vanishing with no explanation all that well."

"Probably should have left a note, sent a text or something."

"Yup."

"So. Is new Rose nicer than the old one?"

"You realize the only person Summer was mean to was you right?"

"She was a silver eyed devil."

"It was one time."

"She beat me so bad she got disqualified from the tournament!"

"I wonder if you did something to piss her off? Perhaps you kicked her partner in the balls?"

"You started it! You called me a little brat!"

"Well you certainly proved me wrong. Kicking me in the balls, then wetting yourself when Summer came stomping over."

Klara flushed red with embarrassment and puffed out her cheeks. Her arms crossed over her chest like a pouting little kid.

"Don't tease! It's scary when you suddenly can't use aura and a crazy glowing eyed woman starts punching you in the face!"

Qrow smirked down at her childish antics.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm sure for someone who only uses aura like you not having it would be pretty damn freaky. But to answer your questions, it's kinda complicated."

"Complicated how?"

"Well Yang, the oldest in case you forgot, is a lot like Tai. Sociable, outgoing, humps everything that moves."

"Cheery."

"Rose on the other hand takes after her mother. So she's-"

"An insecure, pissy, spiteful, stubborn little shit who loves fighting?"

Qrow stared levelly at her.

"Well I was going to say a bit moody. But that works too."

The pair raised another shot in toast and downed them.

"Turns out those Xiao Long genes aren't as strong as Tai liked to think, huh?"

"Now he says Yang got a double dose, deprived Rose of the inheritance."

Qrow looked up and waved down Livia and moments later she replaced the metal tray of shots with a fresh one.

"Say Qrow."

"Yeah tyke?"

She glared unhappily at the new line of drinks. They already took eight, and they hadn't even made it four months. Four months, of sixteen years.

"I think I'm running out of friends."

Qrow raised a shot and she shakily touched classes once again.

"Aren't we all."

Klara choked down the shot. Despite all the drinks flooding her stomach, she still barely felt more than a pleasant tingling. For the first time in her life she regretted having so much aura. She just couldn't get drunk fast enough.

* * *

 **AN: Welcome once again to the bottom of the page. In case you were wondering, the name of the chapter and the name of the waitress are Guild Wars references. Livia is a necromancer in both guild wars games, and Rites of Remembrance was a quest in the first game. Both worked pretty well for the theme of the chapter, and i just like the name Livia. L names are nice. I'm not sure if it fits the color name rule, since I got several wildly different name meaning for it. But hell, lets just imagine her last name is a color shall we?**

 **On other notes, I left out quite a bit between Qrow and Klara that i wanted to have in this chapter. Mostly i wanted to bust this one out so i could get to the editing of the entire first section to be honest. So more of that should be added in over time as i rearrange things. I'm trying to give more of a society to the Hunters than in the main story. I thought about basing something off of the "Missing Man Table" type of thing you see in the marine's, but i figured with the lack of strict organization or formalities the Hunters have, just drinking to your fallen comrades would make more sense.**

 **Plus i wanted Qrow and Klara to get wasted the night before Klara has to teach her first class.**

 **Random tidbits for the upcoming chapters. Beacon will use a block system. 1 class before lunch, 1 after lunch, and 1 after dinner. The after dinner class is only 2 days a week the way im currently organizing it. I did this partly so i don't need to include so many classes each day, as well as because Ports class would suck so much worse if it was a 3 hour lecture. I'm sure many can relate to having the massive auditorium lecture hall college course with 500 other students where absolutely NOTHING was interesting. Ill be going for that sort of vibe.**

 **So as I said way too many times before I would be increasing the lethality of the Hunting profession, and one way i decided to do this is by having Klara be from a wiped team. CHLK, or Chalk. I didn't have the characters on the team entirely planned out from the beginning, i just knew i wanted Glynda to be pissed at Klara. This seamed to be the best reason for it :P.**

 **Next chapter is something strange again. Not Salem telling a story, but kind of in that same vein.**


	11. Time and Place

**AN: Not much to say. This is a shorter chapter since I wanted to keep it separate from the rest of their first day of classes.**

* * *

Volume 1 Chapter 10: Time and Place

* * *

I _stare up at the bunk above me. I'm sure I have a huge smile plastered on my face like some kind of moron, but I just can't stop!_

 _I'm at Beacon! BEACON!_

 _The single greatest Hunter Academy in all of Remnant._

 _In spite of my parents sabotaging me at every turn, I fricking MADE it!_

 _I hear a sleepy yawn off to the side as one of my teammates slowly stirs themselves awake. I take that as my cue to finally get out of bed and toss my blanket off of me and slide out of bed quietly._

 _The floor is nice and cool under my feet and I curl my toes in the soft carpeting when I quickly run my body through some light stretches, the cracks of my joints popping sound so loud I'm surprised no one wakes up. Especially the raven-haired girl on my team, she's so twitchy._

 _She's nice enough though. Kind of strict, but from what I saw during initiation she is definitely qualified to be here._

 _Once I finish popping my joints and reach into my backpack resting next to my bed and pull out a small whistle._

 _Inhale._

 _SWEEEEEEEEEEEE_

 _The three full bunks explode into motion. The blond rolls out of the bottom bunk just in time for the black-haired girl to land on top of him. They both shout in surprise at the collision and tumble to the floor in a ball of limbs and long hair._

 _My partner flips off the bunk over mine and calmly walks over and yanks the whistle out of my hands, walks to the window, and throws it out as hard as he can._

 _"What was that for?!" The blond shouts as he finally manages to untangle his limbs from the growling girl. It's a good thing we don't have our weapons in our dorms._

 _"GOOOOOOD MORNING TEAM STRQ!" I throw my hands over my head and shout cheerfully._

 _My partner growls and rubs the sleep out of his face quickly but he can't hide the twitch of his lips upwards as he tries his hardest to resist smiling._

 _His sister isn't quite as happy._

 _"ARE YOU A MORON!?" Raven shouts as she climbs to her feet, only to step on Tai's calf and fall back to the ground with an undignified squeak._

 _I point imperiously at the three._

 _"As your glorious leader, it is my duty to make sure you all wake up on time! And it's already 6AM! We only have three hours before classes! We haven't even unpacked or decided on showering schedules yet!"_

 _Tai sighs and falls back into his bed and immediately begins snoring again._

 _Well he definitely isn't getting first use of the shower._

 _Raven finally manages to get to her feat without tumbling over._

 _"Summer. I swear if you wake me up like that again..."_

 _"Qrow already destroyed my whistle, you are safe!"_

SWWWWEEEEEEEEEEE

Rose jumped from her bed and fell to the floor with a thud and a startled yell.

"GOOOOOD MORNING TEAM RWBY!" the combined shout of her three other team members rang out.

All three of the girls were already out of their pajamas and in their school uniforms ready for the day. Rose shakily got to her feat. Her arms and legs were tingling with adrenalin from her sudden awakening. She stomped over to her sister who was smiling far too happily for Roses tastes. She stopped in front of the taller girl and put her hands on her hips, glaring angrily.

"Good morning Rose! It's time to unpack!"

Rose sighed and gave a curt nod.

The four girls unpacking went quite smoothly. Weiss and Yang plastered the walls with colorful posters and Blake had a surprisingly large collection of books she seemed to pull out of thin air. Rose for her part mostly had school supplies and tools for working on weapon designs. Luckily the school had its own entire building for weapon working so she only had to take the bare minimum for upkeep to store in her room.

But despite Roses lack of clutter, they ran out of space quickly.

Blake looked at the pile of extra stuff they had no more space for, it was mostly hers and Yang's.

"I guess we have to get rid of some stuff."

Weiss and Yang agreed, Yang of course being overdramatic and clinging to her piles of junk with tear filled eyes.

Rose thought of her dream and spoke up before the two could start carting things out.

"You could always make bunk beds."

Yang and Blakes eyes shone when they turned from their respective piles. Blake was happy she wouldn't have to abandon her poor books on the streets, Yang was more surprised that her sister of all people came up with a fun idea like bunk beds.

"Do we even have tools to do that?" Weiss spoke up interrupting the two girls exited chattering.

"Of course we do! There's gotta be some sort of supply closet around here! Easy peasy!" Yang and Blake ran out of the room in search of supplies.

Rose facepalmed at the sight of her overly excitable sister.

A short minute later the two came back in loaded up with rolls of tape, nails, hammers, and all sorts of other tools that really didn't have any use in bunking beds, but no doubt Yang wanted to play with.

"Okay. Have fun." Rose said before grabbing her uniform and heading to the bathroom.

"Oh c'mon sis, don't you wanna help!?" Yang pleaded pitifully. Her eyes grew watery and large like a puppy.

"No. You two are the ones who need it, so do the work yourselves."

She shut the door behind her and moments later she could hear the sounds of hammering nails, tape being cut, and far too many sawing noises for comfort.

 _Please don't destroy the room Yang..._

After her shower Rose came out of the bathroom refreshed and slightly damp to see two bends bunked in slightly... abnormal ways.

One side of the room had a bed suspended by rope and tape, the other was stacked on top of the other using stacks of books between the beds to level the posts.

"So Rose, whadya think?" Yang posed in front of the beds arms stretched wide like she was presenting some sort of gameshow reward.

"It's about what I expected actually. I call top bunk." Rose tossed her pillow onto the bed hanging by ropes and tape.

"What!? Shouldn't we put it to a vote!?" shouted Weiss. She didn't want to wake up at night to find a bed fell on top of her and crushed her in her sleep.

"If you wanted it safer you should have built it that way."

Weiss sighed in defeat at that. She could have reined in Yang after all and just nailed the suckers in, and if the person making them didn't feel comfortable using them they had no right to tell someone else to use them after all. Weiss tossed her things in the bed below Roses, and Blake and Yang played a quick game of rock paper scissors to decide their situation. Blake pumped her fist in the air while Yang grumbled dejectedly. Blake tossed her thing in the top bunk across from Rose.

"Say Yang, where did you get the idea to wake me up with a whistle?"

Yang looked up from her bed where she was trying in vain to fit the sheet around the mattress without it having crazy folds all over it.

"Oh that? Dad told me about it a while ago. Said Summer did it to them on their first day as a team. Did he or Qrow never tell you about it? Half of dads' stories from Beacon are about Summer's antics after all."

Rose frowned and shook her head. "No, I don't think dad has ever told me a story about Summer before."

"That's strange. Dad and Qrow never shut up about her when they drink."

Rosees frown deepened. She glanced up at the clock sitting on one of the desks under the window. Bright LED's read 8:55am.

"We better get going. Class is in five minutes."

"WHAT?!" Weiss shouted and barelled past Rose and out the door quickly followed by Blake and Yang.

Rose remained in the room alone. Thinking about the weird dream.

 _Whatever. Dad probably just told me it once and I forgot until I came to Beacon myself._

The dream was weird though. She was always had that lingering sunken fear eating at her that she had to overcome, but during that dream she was just... happy.

Rose shimmered and vanished out the door leaving a trail of rose petals in her wake.

* * *

 **Welcome again to the bottom of the chapter.**

 **Now that I have initiation over and am actually into Beacon, I will be going back over the next few days and giving some first edits to the first 10 chapters. Should only take a day or two. Might write another chapter while I'm doing it so i dont get too bored.**

 **Starting from this chapter, and into the classes that will start next chapter, you will be seeing a lot more of my lore changes.**

 **Oh, and since they never show Summer's weapon, I decided to make it a Curved Greatsword. Basically if you have played Dark Souls, you should know what I'm talking about in terms of visuals. All flowing slashes, no stabbing. I really like it in anime and stuff when really tiny girls have massive weapons hahaha.**

 **Sence its short I guess I will respond to some reviews.**

 **A guest mentioned how Yang is portrayed in fanficitons as being protective of her sister while in the show she isn't really protective at all 90% of the time. I'm inclined to agree. It's one of my minor gripes with the show that Yang almost gets Ruby killed and doesn't significantly change for it. That will be a major event for Rose and Yang in my story. Yay! Mostly it will have to do with Rose overcoming her fear and becoming a hunter.**

 **LastheJihadist : You bet it's a bad highschool anime! THE BEST KIND OF ANIME! But yeah. Once the edits are done Rose should have less Weiss like personality. Mostly i just enjoyed swapping their places in that chapter to be honest haha. I really plan on doing more with Jaune and Pyrrha, and actually using Jaune as a full character with alot of screen time. During my initial drafts i really didn't want to write for him though so I kept putting off bringing him up as a character haha. He will be getting a fairly major upgrade over the course of things. His character type works alot better over a longer period of time. i especially want him to be competent and actually useful by the time team JRNY... errr... RNGR goes to Mistral. I hated how they went on a dangerous adventure and even then Jaune is still incompetent. Also... ALL HAIL THE OP ANIME OC'S! LONG MAY THEY SHARENGAN THE SHIT OUT OF EVERYTHING! or whatever the current bullshit overpowered anime power is haha. But yeah. Klara is quite OP to be honest at the moment. I need to actually introduce and show off people like Qrow and other top tier Hunters in combat to give more context to how strong each character is since I have increased the power cap so much. **


	12. Lesson Plans

**AN: Heyo. Colors back once again with another chapter. This took forever because I was playing Farcry 5 constantly. Boy that game is fucking great. It also means i didn't finish editing all the other chapters. So this one is kinda strange, sense i wrote it over two weeks despite it being so short. So i fully expect it to be choppy as shit. First class is much less exciting that the students hoped.**

 **Oh, and i changed the rating to M. I wont be including any erotic junk because it's frivolous and unnecessary, mostly I just couldn't be bothered to find the rules on cursing, and I like to fucking swear.**

 **If i end up feeling particularly perverted I will prolly just drop it in its own document and cry myself to sleep in shame.**

* * *

Volume 1 Chapter 11: Lesson Plans

* * *

Teams RWBY and JNPR barely managed to get to class on time. The burst through the door into the lecture hall at 8:59 with just seconds to spare. They quickly rushed to a row of open seats and fell into them gasping.

Except for Rose, she was used to going fast.

The hall was fairly typical for a lecture room. A massive holoboard on the wall with U shaped terraces for seating across from it. Just in front of the holoboard on the small dais for the Professor to speak from sat a small wooden lectern.

Nine o'clock hit and the entire building vibrated as the toiling of a bell rang through the entire Academy.

The dozens of students looked around curiously. Where was their teacher?

Five minutes past and they began to shuffle in their seats uncomfortably.

10 Minutes and Yang was asleep.

20 minutes and Jaune Ren and Nora began playing a card game together on their scrolls. Pyrrha didn't know the rules yet so she had to watch.

30 minutes into a 3-hour class and the teacher still hadn't arrived.

At 40 minutes team CDNL had had enough and were opening the door to leave.

BAM!

The heavy wooden door tore off it hinges and blasted across the room. The CDN took a door to the face and went flying, while the L dived out of the way and sprinted in terror back to his chair.

The entire class sans the three unconscious students stared open mouthed at the destruction. The door was wedged into the wall at head level across the room and dust slowly drifted through the air.

"Guten Morgen, kleine Scheißkerle!"

From the door way a small white-haired girl in grey and pink children's pajamas stalked into the room holding her head in one hand, eyes squeezed shut.

"Oh, dust not her again." Rose mumbled under her breath unconsciously, drawing the attention of her teammates.

Rose turned to explain how she met the little ball of chaos when Klara shouted angrily at the students from the lectern.

"FUN FACT! AURA SLOWS DOWN GETTING DRUNK, BUT ONCE DRUNK DOES NOTHING FOR HANGOVERS!"

She began to bash her head into the lectern.

 _Oh no she's going to kill us all._

Rose started to debate with herself if it was worth trying to sneak out the door.

The small girl rested her head on the lectern with a thunk, arms hanging limply at her side.

"I am Professor Klara. You may call me Professor, Klara, or Professor Klara. I will be teaching you proper Aura use over your next 4 years here."

The entire room stared in somehow even more shock. This crazy little girl, was their PROFESSOR!?

"With introductions out of the way, Welcome to the first class of..." She slapped the holoscreen causing it to fall to the floor and shatter into a million little pieces, revealing the blackboard behind it with the words, "WHATEVER I TALK ABOUT 101!" Klara yelled while pointing with both hands at the blackboard.

"What the fuck?" Yang muttered under her breath. Her eyes were widened in shock and her mouth was hanging open. Her confusion was mirrored by every other student in the room.

Except for Rose, who was looking around nervously trying to find an escape route. Maybe she could cut through the floor before anyone noticed?

Klara grumbled when no one applauded her incredible presentation and leaned back on the lectern. She waved a hand and the room filled with what looked like heat haze and the door and holoscreen flew into the air and fixed themselves. The three dazed members of CDNL floated gently through the air towards their empty seats where they were unceremoniously dumped headfirst into their chairs.

"So kiddos! I hope you are all as EXCITED as I am. Now to start out, did anyone here _not_ go to those stupid shitty combat schools?"

A a handful of students, including vomit boy, rose their hands timidly.

"Fantastic, now did any of you happen to apprentice under a trained Hunter instead?"

Two of the hands lowered, leaving vomit boy and two others.

"Good. Hopefully the three of you don't have any bad habits then. The rest of you, you definitely do have some horrible habits. Unfortunately, training aura properly is above the paygrade of a Combat School. Heck, until I came here it was above the paygrade of a Hunter Academy."

She looked over the students one at a time, her gaze lingered briefly on Yang and skipped over Rose entirely.

"Most Hunters are weapon experts who use aura to augment their abilities and strengthen and protect their bodies. In fact, out of every hunter who has graduated from Beacon, all but three or four fall into this category."

"I however, do not. I use aura exclusively and use no weapon whatsoever."

She waved a hand casually and the holoscreen lit up and a cartoonish drawing of a man with limbs spread and a circle around him appeared on the screen.

"I am what is referred to as an Auramancer. It's incredibly rare to see one of us these days because it takes far more effort than learning normal Hunter methods. The normal mortality rates of Hunter's don't help either, because focusing purely on aura means you are more susceptible to normal attacks early in your training."

"So I won't be training you purely as Auramancers. After all, none of you are likely to have the talent for it."

She marched back and forth on the dais, legs lifting high out in front of her like some great war era Atlas military leader.

"The Gifts bestowed upon an Auramancer will allow me to train you far more efficiently than a any normal type of instructor. This combined with my expertise with aura means I will be able to turn you into the best Hunters in the world."

The petite girl paused mid stride and tilted her head thoughtfully.

"That or your aura will run wild and tear you to shreds."

"Well that's peachy." Yang mumbled under her breath. The other three couldn't help but agree, the short display of whatever their new professor had used to fix the holoscreen was enough to dispel any doubts as to her ability. Now they were filled with trepidation at her less than invigorating wordplay.

"HOWEVER!" Klara snapped her heals together and spun back to face the class. "That is quite unlikely. Especially with the simple things we will be doing in first years. We probably will never use the entire class time as well. Most of what I will be having you do will require work constantly outside of class instead, with me merely providing targeted feedback and instruction during meeting times."

"Which reminds me actually..." She looked around the room in confusion before noticing she is in her pajamas. "Errr... shit. Well I guess the syllabus can wait until Thursday."

The entire class just stared blankly at the strange professor while she picked lint off of her shirt.

"I take it everyone remembered to bring their scrolls?"

A chorus of nods.

"Good. Take them out now please. They should have an application on them that looks like the symbol on the board, a man in a circle. Poke it and open it up."

Rose gave the little icon a tap as instructed and the scrolls screen went black with a little swirling circle in the center of it.

"The application is now calibrating. This little feature on Hunter scrolls allows them to track your Aura levels. Typically, it would only be used in combat classes, but I will be gauging your auras constantly throughout the year, so you need to get used to using it."

Beeping noises came from all the scrolls almost simultaneously. The screens all showed a green bar with a "100%" marker in black text inside of it.

"Now that they are all calibrated, the application will treat your current aura levels as your maximum, so every so often you will have to recalibrate it as you gain more total aura. The system will keep a log of your increases to help with this, so please don't be an idiot and break your scroll or smash it's CCT card, will you?"

The class mumbled assent.

Klara took out her own scroll and opened the app up and showed it to the class. Hers was showing a red bar barely filling a tenth of the screen.

"That leads us into the homework for today. And by today, I mean the rest of the week. When it comes to aura, one of the most important things is not only knowing how much you have total, but how fast you naturally replenish your aura. So, until next Monday, at this time, you are all to get your Aura below 50%, and keep it there. Every minute. Of every day."

The class stared in wide mouthed shock.

 _Half aura!? For a fucking week!?_ Rose screamed in her head. Having below fifty percent was horrible. Your brain would feel sluggish and everything moved like it was through quicksand. For a normal person it was just like being tired, but for her, who's semblance was speed, it was like everything was moving in slow motion, all the time.

It sucked.

"I can tell from your faces you are very excited to get started!" Klara shouted with sadistic glee. "I know it won't be pleasant, but neither is dying horribly because you miscalculated how much aura you would have."

Klara put away her scroll and looked up at the holoboard to check the time. After her 40-minute tardiness she was only actually in class for 10 minutes. So still 2 hours until lunchtime.

"We have a lot of time left before lunch, but I don't have anything more to say. Your scrolls will monitor your aura levels constantly through the weak. So, lower them by lunch or I will fail you for the year."

The small teacher in pajamas waved goodbye to the students and walked out the door.

"Oh. Almost forgot." She popped her head back in the door, "If you eat sweets your aura will regenerate faster. It also will help alleviate the more debilitating symptoms of Aura deprivation."

She waved again and vanished from sight.

"I think this class is going to suck." Yang said and hung her head on the desk. All the other students couldn't help but agree with her.

* * *

 **Welcome to the bottom of the chapter once again.**

 **Not much to say this time. I felt the need to explain the hole aura monitoring scroll thing, and figured it would make a good method for training students beyond just letting them know when they are almost out.**

 **For anyone wondering the class schedule, essentially it is this...**

 **Day 1: Aura (Klara), lunch, Grimm studies (Port), dinner, Free period.**

 **Day 2: Combat (Glynda), lunch, weapon class (Peach), dinner, free period.**

 **Day 3: History (Oobleck), lunch, "Hunter Crap" (Varies, basically just one of the teachers talking about important shit to hunters, like systems of different countries and mission processing). Dinner, Tactics/leadership for team leaders. (Varies. Ozpin mostly.) During this time eventually the other students will be taking job/role type classes as well. So one might learn basic field medicine, wilderness crap, scouting, etc. I figure each team should definately have someone with basic medical knowledge at least.**

 **Day 4: repeat of Day 1, but with Dust Studies in the free period.**

 **Day 5: Repeat of day 2, but with History during the free period.**

 **Day 6, 7. Free days. Students in good standing can visit Vale proper.**

 **You might be thinking, "Wow, thats poorly planned, and Klaras aura training will conflict with Combat classes." And yes, you are right!**

 **I plan on having Ports Grimm Studies classes be much more focused than the boring shitfest in the show. I plan on moving that to whenever he is the teacher of the day for "hunter Crap". Sence his ramblings actually make sense their.**

 **I will pretty much be showing the first week or so of class, maybe only 3 or 4 of the days in entirety, than will be jumping forward periodically. Usually a few days or a couple weeks between chapters to show important crap. Keep in mind my planned structure is for Year 1 to have Torchwick be the main villain, without it escalating beyond him, so their will a lot more... completely "not in the show" shit happening pretty soon. After all, gotta fill a year with shit.**

 **PS: I have pretty much changed everything about Jaune. He is still shit at fighting, and doesnt know much about aura. But he will have some areas of competence, such as actual knowledge on Grimm stuff.**

 **(Welcome to the rant.]**

 **Oh. AND HIS FUCKING AURA IS UNLOCKED AND HE KNOWS WHAT AURA IS. WHY THE FUCK WOULD HE NOT KNOW ABOUT IT!? THATS LIKE JOINING THE ARMY, GETTING TO TRAINING AND BEING LIKE, "WHAT THE FUCK IS A GUN!?" HOW WOULD THAT NEVER COME UP IN CONVERSATIONS!? DO THE CHARACTERS IN UNIVERSE KNOW AS LITTLE ABOUT THEIR OWN WORLD AS WE DO!? DID JAUNE FORGET TO WATCH THE STUPID WORLD OF REMNANT VIDEOS, which i can actually complain about all day. Sense the simple fact that they needed supplementary material to explain the basic concept of the show and world building is such a major fucking flaw. And that plot crucial characters are shown in trailers and forgotten for years.**

 **Honestly, every time i rewatch the show, Im fucking amazed that I love it so much. Because it's like.. 50% flawed junk, 40% missed opurtunities, and 10 percent shipping, which i dont even do.**

 **But boy do i still fucking love it.**

 **(rant over. Probably)**

 **Seriously though, he has aura. Fucking shit writing.**

 **Also, I have never managed to talk to anyone about this. But in the episode with Tyrian fighting the RNJR in the village, the music that plays quietly in the background when he's talking is Harry Potter music, except they changed the last few notes.**

 **I dont have anything to go with that. But i needed to get it off my chest.**

 **Also the partner AI in farcry 5 fucking blows. Bitch wont land her helicopter, and Nick crashes into the floor all the time.**

 **I feel very complainy today.**


	13. Lunch and a Monster at Port

**AN: Hey. Colors back once again. Been about a month sense last update. Mostly because final exams and school. But now that is done, and summer is upon us, so i don't really have an obligations for the next few months. So expect more chapters in the next few days.**

* * *

Volume 1 Chapter 12: Lunch and a Monster at Port

* * *

Lunch was a morbid affair.

The students who already had their first class with Klara were either slumped lifelessly over their tables with the scrolls held in clammy, limp hands or shoveling food in their mouths as fast as possible and constantly blasting their aura.

So, to put it lightly, it was very eventful, as well as confusing for late arrivals.

All the various members of teams RWBY, JNPR, CRDL, and the other two teams in their class were moaning in what the others could only assume was mortal agony. The task given to them was simple, but each had come up with their own unique way of dealing with the terrible task.

Although they all moaned constantly. That was pretty much universal.

Rose took her professors words to heart and was shoveling chocolate chip cookies into her mouth alternating with running around the room using her semblance.

Weiss, lacking any sweet tooth, attempted to eat a salad while using her glyphs. It worked well for all of 10 minutes at which point her aura draining made her feal too nauseous to eat. She was left moaning like the rest, clutching her stomach with her face resting in her meal.

Blake had much more composure than her teammates. She managed to sit calmly at the table without constantly complaining, although her bow was twitching furiously, nobody could be bothered to notice however because they were focusing too much on the very noisy, (and for students who had Aura class after lunch, terrifying) students.

Yang simply chose to punch the wall over and over to get her aura down.

Team JNPR was doing far better in comparison. Ren was sitting on the floor cross legged doing some sort of "voodoo meditation" as Nora called it. The excitable redhead was taking a fork and shoving it into a power socket over and over despite Pyrrha's pleas. She was the the most relaxed of all the students, simply floating a coin over her palm while eating lunch. Their glorious leader on the other hand was having a very terrible time.

"Gah! Why does it go up so fast!" The blonde yelled in exasperation as he pulled his hair. Unlike the other students who had some time to take breaks while their aura was low, his kept going up far too fast for him to have a good break.

"It's nothing to complain about Jaune, it's very useful having an aura that recharges so fast, mine takes days." Pyrrah responded with a smile. Her last hour was spent watching Jaune jump up from the table every few minutes to drop to the floor and do various exercises. The poor leader barely got a moments rest while Pyrrah, who had a much better grip on her aura from her time training for tournaments, could relax and watch the way his pants hugged his buttocks when he wasn't looking.

 _I truly have been blessed. All my life. Up to this moment. Has been worth it._ The fiery redhead thought to herself as Jaune fell back onto the ground to do aura infused pushups.

It was all she could do not to drool.

* * *

Professor Ports Grimm Studies class was not what the students were expecting.

Especially Weiss, since she found herself staring at a angry boarbatusk in a cage after being told she would have to fight it.

About 30 seconds into class.

 _I never did say goodbye to Winter. I wonder how she will react to my untimely demise._

"Stomach." A boared (AHAHAHA GET IT!?) voice came from behind her. Weiss turned to to see Rose leaning against their desk a few rows up reading a book as if she couldn't be less interested in what her partner was doing.

"What do you me AAH!", the heiress let out a startled shout and jumped out of the way of the charging Grimm. Port had chosen to release the beast the moment he saw she was distracted.

"The head and back is heavily armored, the sides have thick fur that combined with it's speed makes it hard to get a good blow and increases the odds of your weapon being torn from your hand by its inertia. Stomach has no armor and no fur. Easy to get through." The red cloaked girl, who for some reason decided a red cloak went well with a grey school uniform, droned in a lazy monotone. Weiss twirled around the grimm just in time to see Rose hold up a piece of notebook paper with a detailed drawing of a boarbatusk with red marks on all its vulnerable areas.

Her other two teammates weren't being any more helpful, although they were at least paying attention and cheering her on.

She wasn't entirely sure where they got the little "Team RWBY" flags though.

"Oh, you can also stab it in the eye, but you probably aren't good enough to do that."

"WHY YOU LITTLE!" Weiss dived out of the way of the charging grimm once again, just barely keeping herself from getting run over by the angry beast.

"You've got it on the ropes now Wize."

"IT'S WEISS!" She slashed at the flank of the beast with her sword as it rolled past her. The monster didn't even flinch at the pitiful strike. As Rose said the sides had a thick coarse fur and her blade wasn't built for slashing regardless.

"It's really not that hard, it's like killing a chicken, or a really trusting puppy."

Yang turned from Weiss's frantic fight with the grimm to look at her sister.

"What's this about killing puppies?"

"That's not the point Yang, the important thing is that pig monster minus sword plus stomach if those two are in brackets equals dead times pig monster."

Yang tilted her head curiously before coming to a realization.

"I forgot you failed algebra. I never noticed why."

Rose fell back into her chair and shoved her head into her book while Weiss shouted angrily in the background.

"I didn't fail. I just didn't pass. Failing is what happens when you can't kill a boarbatusk."

 _ **"Will you frikkin shut up!?"**_ Weiss screamed in rage. She flicked the trigger on her sword and a burst of ice erupted from underneath the boarbatusk. The impact sent the pig monster sliding on the ground into the wall giving Weiss the opportunity she needed to leap forward and stab the creature in the stomach. More ice channeled through her blade into the insides of the grimm, skewering its body from the inside out, leaving it a smoking ice riddled corpse.

"GOOD JOB YOUNG LADY! I SAY THAT WAS QUITE INVENTIVE!" Professor Port boomed out from his desk, interrupting Weiss as she turned to yell more at her leader.

"NOW IN AN ACTUAL COMBAT SITUATION YOU WOULD OF COURSE BE ENCOURAGED TO KILL THE GRIMM AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE, BUT IN A CONTROLED ENVIRONMENT IT IS UNDERSTANDABLE TO GET COMFORTABLE AND WAIT FOR THE PERFECT MOMENT!"

The fat old man gave Weiss a pat on the back that almost knocked her off her feet.

"AND MISS SCHNEE HERE DID A GREAT JOB LULLING THE BEAST INTO A FALSE SENCE OF SECURITY BY PRETENDING TO BICKER WITH HER PARTNER! CAPITAL WORK YOU TOO, SIMPLY CAPITAL!"

 _Yes. Pretending. Of course._

Weiss made her way back to her seat next to Rose and glared at the younger girl. Port turned away to examine the grimms corpse and spout information about how the decomposition of grimm worked.

"You certainly weren't helpful at all." She hissed at the slouching teen. Rose didn't even grace her with a look, simply shrugging and reaching forward to tap her one of the notebooks sitting on her desk. The book had a black cover with red flowers covering it. In the center of the cover white block text read, "BOARBATUSK NOTES".

 _There's no way they sell this specific book in stores. She definitely had to custom order this thing._ Weiss thought nonsensically as if it mattered that everyone in Beacon had oddly intricate and customized things even though most people would settle for generic stuff.

The red cloaked girl flipped the book open to a page covered in tight packed drawing and notes about the grimm in question. She slid the book in front of Weiss who flipped through the pages, taking in intricate drawings of their musculature and armor plating thicknesses all over their bodies. Dozens of notes about each body part and the effectiveness of certain weapons on them. Each little detail had page upon page of notes and exposition about the pros and cons of details such as the effectiveness of serrated weapons for cutting through the grimms joints. There was even a chart covering a dozen pages listing the exact amount of time it took hundreds of different boarbatusks to flip themselves back over after being knocked onto her back.

All in all. Weiss was quite impressed.

"I have similar books on every grimm type. Although the more dangerous ones have less firsthand information."

Weiss flipped through page after page in slack jawed amazement.

"How did you even... this is so..."

Rose shrugged and put her book down.

"Hunting Grimm is pretty much the only thing im actually good at." She stated levely as if it didn't bother her at all, much to Weiss's confusion. "I'm not good with... people or school at all really, but hunting was always different."

She pointed a thumb to Yang on the far side of Blake.

"Unlike Yang I can't really hold my own at all in normal schooling. I almost flunked out of Signal because I couldn't pass the general education classes. If dad wasn't a teacher and Uncle Qrow didn't throw some weight around I would have been in some serious trouble."

Weiss looked up from her hungry devouring of the notes to look at her partner with a pained look on her face.

"Wait she was being serious? You didn't pass algebra?"

Rose shook her head and sighed.

"Yup. I got caught cheating halfway through and they kicked me out of the class. I just don't have a drive to succeed in that stuff the way I do Hunting or with weapons." She glanced at her sister wistfully, "We can't all be perfect and get incredible grades, be amazing hunters, open and charismatic to everyone, and incredibly beautiful."

Yang reached over and karate chopped Rose's on top of her head.

"Shaddup Rose, you sound like a serial killer before they start talking about wearing someone's skin." The blonde said in mock seriousness, but a massive smile immediately broke through.

Rose groaned and held her head.

"This headache from keeping my aura down certainly isn't helping. I should have brought more cookies to class."

In a flash the other three member of team RWBY whipped out their scrolls to check their aura levels, panic-stricken faces calming only when they got the app open showing them still below 50%.

A few feet to the right Jaune was sitting on thin air between two chairs to keep his aura from going up.

 _Yes Jaune, keep the money maker toned._ Pyrrhas thought with a lecherous giggle that caused Ren to give her a puzzled look.

* * *

 **AN: Welcome to the bottom of the page!**

 **As you will have noticed, I am making Pyrrha perverted. Mostly because I find it funny because it's so... different from how she acts on the outside.**

 **Also, I will be making it so peoples auras recharge at their own rates, along with how I'm giving them different max amounts. So Pyrrha recharges slowly. going from 0-100 percent in about 2 days. Jaune has relatively small total aura, but recharges from 0-100 in about an hour. I haven't concrete decided on other characters, since for plot reasons relating to how my version of the silver eyes Rose's aura wont fill up properly.**

 **Gotta say, making Pyrrha perverted makes writing Jaune waaay more entertaining. I actually enjoyed the parts with him in this chapter!**

 **I dont think i have ever said this before. But you know the drill. Follow if you want updates, Favorite if you think my drivel is good, Review if you have a question or comment or criticism. If anything is strange or confusing in this chapter please let me know, the month long break probably didn't do me any wonders haha.**

 **God i feel like one of those shitty youtubers who screams LIKE COMMENT AND SUBSCRIBE fucking all the damn time in their videos.**

 **Oh. And i'm sure most people saw what I'm doing with how silver eyes work in this version. I didn't bother making it very subtle like I planned initially, but I wanted to have that first person Summer POV immediately after the examination.**


	14. Day One Dark

**AN: Heyo, Colors here. Short chapter today. Meant for it to go longer, but I'm about to take a nap and I don't want to put this off forever like I did with the last chapter.**

* * *

Volume 1 Chapter 13: Day One Dark

* * *

Dinner came and went much the same as lunch, with the notable exception that their were now twice as many students wallowing in misery as before. The older students, especially the third and fourth years, took great enjoyment at seeing their underclassmen in such misery. Most of them looked forward to this new teacher, fully expecting that unlike their compatriots they would be fully up to the task.

Those poor, poor fools.

Especially the ones who had Aura class directly after dinner. Nothing quite like a full stomach to really accentuate mind blowing nausea!

Team RWBY had no classes after dinner so the four girls went back to their dorm.

"We don't have any homework to do yet. What are we supposed to do for the rest of the night?" Weiss asked to no one in particular as she flopped onto her bed. It was tempting to just let the aura exhaustion induced... exhaustion just pull her into sweet dreams, but it was their first day of schooling, she didn't want to fall asleep just after dinner.

Blake shrugged and pulled a plain looking black bound book out from under her pillow and climbed into her bunk to read. She certainly didn't have anything exciting planned.

"I don't have a clue. I suppose we could just laze arround and talk. We havn't really had the chance to talk about ourselves. We are supposed to be living together for the next four years after all." Yang said thoughfully. Weiss was honestly surprised the bombastic girl was so thoughtful and forward thinking about their situation.

Rose on the other hand had different ideas. The red clad girl managed to change from her uniform into a more rugged outfit of a black tank top with some bands logo Weiss couldn't recognize on it, along with knee length black cargo shorts.

"Do what you want. I'm going to the training rooms." Their glorious leader pulled on her heavy boots, tucked her gloves in her pocket, and walked out of the room without so much as a look at her team.

Weiss and Blake stared at the door the teen left through.

"Well that's about what I expected." Yang mumbled. "I'm actually surprised she came to the room with us to change at all."

Weiss rolled off of her bed and stretched her back out with a groan.

"So... chatting? Getting to know each other?"

The blonde smiled and nodded, rotating herself so she sat on her bed facing Weiss and Blake closed her book with a sigh. The raven-haired girl plastered a smile on her face and began talking in what was possibly the most sarcastic voice possible.

"Hello. I'm Blake Belladonna. I'm 19, mostly lived outside of the cities, which is where I learned to fight. I enjoy reading books, watching crime dramas, and long walks on the beach."

Yang smiled cheekily, "Small world, I also like long walks on the beach."

"Blegh.." Blake grumbled in return. How dare she make light of her angsting!?

"Okay, so me next. Let's see..." Weiss mumbled and thought for a moment. What should she say? Should she be completely honest? She didn't wasn't anything too bad getting back to her father.

But then again, they _were_ going to be together for years. May as well start out honest.

"My name is Weiss Schnee. I am the heir to the Schnee Dust Company, the largest dust provider in the world. My hobbies include singing and playing the guitar. I am becoming a Hunter mostly to get out from under my father's thumb, and because everything I achieve as a Hunter will be because of my own merits."

The girl looked nervous for a moment before deciding to continue.

"Also, until a few years ago I was a member of the White Fang."

* * *

On the opposite side of the campus, a massive series of buildings stood a ways off from the main buildings. Unlike the ornate majesty of the other parts of the school these looked much more utilitarian. Some even had oddly mismatched marts where it was obvious repairs had been made quite recently.

And far more worryingly, there was a massive crater between two of the buildings where another one must have stood.

These were of course the training grounds.

In the most distant buildings, which also happened to be the least used, Rose was in a room of her own. The floor was covered in a layer of sand, not too thick, just enough ot reach the top of the soles of Roses boots. The walls and ceiling were a pure bright white, with no real features other than the rectangle of the door she entered through.

Of course, this room was more than just a simple battleground for students to fight each other.

Rose tapped a few buttons on her scroll before tucking it into her pocket. She gripped the thick handle of Red Dragon in both hands and readied herself to fight.

On the far side of the room, the sand slowly stirred as a brease twirled the air.

"GRAAAAAAAAAWWW!"

On the far side of the room, glaring at her with baleful eyes, stood a massive Nevermore.

This was what made these rooms so special. Each one had a thousand of hard light projectors allowing students to train against anything they wanted to.

Provided the school had enough data of course.

Rose had spent all day mulling over the fight with the two massive Grimm during initiation. To put it lightly, she was not happy with her performance. She didn't like having to rely on others, so the only option in her mind was to train until she got better.

She activated her semblance and shot off like a bullet towards the massive beast leaving a trail of blood red rose petals.

If anyone was in the room to watch, they wouldn't have been able to miss the massive smile on her face as the Nevermore charged right back at her.

* * *

"Ozpin, is there any particular reason you are stalking a student?" Professor Goodwitch asked from her place beside Ozpins desk. The man in question was staring intently at the stream of Rose fighting against Nevermores over and over again. Each time she would fight it as hard as she could and lose, getting thrown heavily against the floor or a wall, or collapsing to the ground as the phantom pain of hard light attacks slowly faded away. Each and every time however, she wouldn't so much as wait to catch her breath before summoning another hard-light simulacrum and leaping back in to the fray.

She had already been at it for several hours.

"You already know the reason why I am keeping an eye on her Glynda." He took a sip from his coco. "Summer never activated it this early. It's possible Miss Ro- Miss Xiao Long is more acclimated to them. You know as well as I how important that could be."

Glynda sighed and moved to sit in a chair across from the headmaster.

"I just don't understand why you don't _tell_ her. Then you could just watch her in person, and actually instruct her."

Ozpin spared a glance for his deputy before looking back at the screen. Rose had finally managed to kill one of the fake Nevermores. It was pure luck, but it was still a good effort none the less. What surprised him the most was that the girl didn't take the time to cheer, or revel in her victory. She simply tapped the button to immediately summon another.

"I don't have the Eye's needed to teach her. I'm not even sure if it's something you can teach. Besides, I don't think we would get along well enough for me to instruct her."

"What do you mean?"

"She is a lot like her mother... and _her._ It doesn't help that she has such a terrifying power inside of her. I'm not very good at dealing with being intimidated by things."

"What you mean is you don't want to accidentally piss her off and get killed by a random discharge?"

"Pretty much."

Glynda stared at the reverse image of the hologram.

"So how are we going to train her?"

Oz took another slow sip of his drink, he enjoyed the exasperated look on Glyndas face as he made her wait for him to finish.

"While _I_ do not have the Eyes. Our newest faculty addition just so happens to have exactly what we need."

* * *

 **Welcome to the bottom.**

 **Very short chapter, but was fun enough to write.**

 **I decided to make it so Weiss was secretly a member of the Fang up until they became Violent assholes, which in my version will have happened 2 years ago. For obvious reasons, this will shock the crap out of Blake.**

 **You can think of this chapter as part one of a chapter, whatever ends up being the next chapter will probably be folded into this one in a later edit.**

 **As i said last time, follow favorite and review.**

 **God damn i feel like a whore asking for that. Like, i legitimately feel dirty.**

 **I might be an idiot or something.**


	15. Words of Wisdom

**AN: Heyo. Next chapter. More of a second half of a chapter to be honest. Kinda stilted dialogue because I'm pretty trash at it, but practice makes perfect. So time for the practice!**

* * *

Volume 1 Chapter 14: Words of Wisdom

* * *

"WHAT!?" Blake yelled from her bunk. Her book lay forgotten by her pillow and she leaned so far out of her bunk that she was on the verge of falling onto Yang.

Weiss chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of her head. "Umm... yeah. It was before they got violent. I helped organize rally's and provide funds." She hopped up from her bed and began to root through her wardrobe. "They didn't exactly publicize it, they didn't want to anger my father too much, and she didn't want the more... extreme members of the organization to do anything about me."

It certainly had been problematic keeping people from knowing who she was. A girl with pure white hair didn't quite blend in. She was eternally thankful for the leaders of the Fang during her membership. They went so far as to provide her with accounting for every dollar she gave them, just to assure her they weren't spending her money on weapons.

Unfortunately, the extremists eventually became the majority, and the old leadership stepped down. Weiss left not long after.

Blake continued to stare wide eyed at the heiress, she opened her mouth several times to say something but all that came out was nonsensical mumbling.

It was making Weiss quite nervous.

"Wow. That... actually makes since based on what I heard of you before I met you." Yang but in to kill the awkward silence. "I remember them saying you were at some sort of music... donation... thing benefiting Faunus rights groups or something or another."

The pale girl nodded with a wistful smile, "Yes, those were fun. It's unfortunately they no longer have the means to put them on. Unfortunately, there aren't many people willing to donate for those causes anymore with all the violence going on."

Weiss looked up and Blake nervously. She really, _reaaaaally_ hoped the B of their team wasn't some sort of anti-faunus hardliner. The irony of leaving her father's home, the den of evil, only to end up having to live with another racist for four more years would be too much for her poor heart to handle. It would be odd considering their first conversation on arriving, but over her life she quickly learned the vilest of bigots were the ones who you don't notice at first.

It certainly wouldn't be the first time she was surprised.

She swallowed and continued, "Blake, are you, okay?"

The girl in question shook kept staring for a moment before slowing lifting a hand and slapping herself. She blinked the dazed dullness from her eyes and nodded her head. "Yeah, sorry. Just didn't expect that. It took me by surprise."

Weiss smiled up at the girl before finally finding what she was looking for. "Ahah! There you are." She pulled out a white face mask and sat back on her bed. She held the mask up in front of her face, causing Yang to make some stupid sounding "oooooooh" noise. It vaguely resembled a beowolfs faceplate, stark white with thin red lines running through it. The mask was only tall enough to cover from her forehead around her nose, and in addition it had a black cloth hanging off the back in addition to the leather straps.

She turned the mask around and set it on her lap, staring down at it she continued. "The cloth was added to hide my hair. Kali didn't want anyone having too much information about the mystery girl providing funds."

A melancholic smile formed on her face while she stared down at it. There were a lot of good memories from that time. Despite all the hardships and stress of hiding from her father, she got to go to bed every night feeling like she had actually accomplished something.

Even the occasional life of death panic from almost being ousted had been worth it.

The conversations got back to a more natural pace after that. Mostly Weiss answered Blake and Yang's questions about her time in the Fang. What she was responsible for (organization and getting permits), why she joined in the first place (fight her father), how much fun it was to make Molotov cocktails (I never made them Yang), and finally returning to the original subject.

"Okay, my turn, right? Let's see... let us see." The buxom blonde tapped a finger on her chin.

"Hi, I'm Yang Xiao Long. I was born and raised on Patch along with my sister. Our father, Taiyang Xiao Long, is a veteran Hunter and our... mother, Raven Branwen, is the leader of a bandit tribe who became a Hunter to get better at murdering people who have aura. She left us shortly after Rose was born, and dad wasn't home too much because he had to go hunting constantly, so I pretty much had to raise Rose by myself once I was ten or so. My hobbies include getting in bar fights, preventing my sister from getting in fights, cooking, and trying to keep Rose from working herself to death. Which reminds me, we should probably look for her, it's been a few hours now."

She came to a stop and burst into laughter upon seeing Weiss and Blakes shocked, open mouthed faces.

* * *

Rose fell face first into the sand panting for breath. Above her the hard-light Nevermore dissolved into floating motes of light that vanished into thin air, leaving no evidence anything was every there, other than the exhausted girl on the floor.

A wide smile broke across her face and she stretched out on the floor, running her hands through the cool sand. She had been fighting the never-ending onslaught of simulacrum for 3 hours but at last, she wrapped her head around how the bird Grimm fights.

She giggled softly to herself and rolled onto her back. "That holograms are a lot easier for learning from than real Grimm." She sighed and pulled Red Dragon to her chest and started stroking it slowly.

These light grimm were definitely less painful to learn from. Fighting hundreds of beowolves took forever and learning how to bait out attacks had meant literally letting the Grimm attack her. With these faux monsters on the other hand, the impacts only gave her a bone shaking impact instead of bone shattering.

So still painful. But nothing a little aura wouldn't fix.

 _It's probably close to cultist... no... that's not the word. Cutlery... CURFEW! That's the word._

The young girl groaned and shakily pushed herself onto her feat. She almost fell right back over onto the floor, she had to use the staff of Red Dragon to hold herself up.

 _Maybe I went a little overboard._

The smile on her face got even wider at the memory of the Nevermores dissolving away. Despite the pain every part of her body was in, the burning in her wrists from overusing her aura, and the gnawing hunger that felt like her stomach trying to eat her spine, she couldn't help but be deliriously happy about her success.

Rose groaned and opened her eyes to look at the starry sky. _What, when did... oh._ She rubbed her eyes, she must have fallen down and passed out walking back. At least it wasn't tomorrow. Yang would kill her if she fell asleep outside for a night again.

"Good morning Miss Xiao Long."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" Rose screamed and leapt to her feat, scythe held at the ready. On the ground, laying casually with his hands together on his stomach with a full cup of coco balanced on his forehead, was Headmaster Ozpin.

The headmaster lifted the mug from his head and somehow took a sip from it despite lying flat on his back. "I hope you do not make a habit of falling asleep outside Miss Xiao Long, proper rest and relaxation is very important for a developing mind and body." He took another sip from the gravity defying mug, this time tilting it far enough that Rose _knew_ that it _definitely_ should be falling out of the mug.

"I-I-I don't- I mean I would nev-" Rose stuttered trying to get her thoughts in order. Going from dead asleep to a conversation with the oddly casual Headmaster was not good for her brain.

"No need to panic Miss... I'm just going to call you Miss Rose. Xiao Long has too many syllables. No need to panic Miss Rose. You aren't in any trouble and you certainly aren't the first student to get so engrossed in training that they lose track of time."

Rose's panic was lessoned slightly at Ozpins words. She still had to take a moment to catch her breath and get her heart rate back down from "Oh fuck I'm going to die" levels. Once she was more relaxed she thought of something she had been waiting for the chance to ask the headmaster.

"Sir, if you don't mind me asking, why did you make me team leader? You know I'm not... good with people. I'm terrible at it. I have no patience for people. Any of my team members would be better choices for the role."

Ozpin stopped sipping form his mug and slowly got to his feat. He dusted off his pants and smiled down at the young girl. It was only now that Rose realized that Ozpin was insanely tall.

"Let me answer your question with another question Miss Rose, what merits have your teammates shown that would make them a good leader?"

"Well Weiss is the heir to the SDC, surely she was trained to be in charge of people since she was little right? And Yang is quick to make decisions and is a thousand times better with people. I don't know Blake very well yet, but from what I saw during initiation she is very calm under pressure."

"You are correct Miss Rose. But knowing how to be in charge, being quick on the draw, and relaxed all on their own do not make a good leader. When the time came and push came to shove, you and you alone took charge of the situation and got everyone in order. You made a plan and executed it immediately. You didn't panic in the face of what you thought was almost certain death and analyzed the situation effectively despite not being able to take full advantage of your teammates abilities."

The man took another sip and reached out to pat the girl on the head.

"Miss Rose, you are a brand-new student. A long time ago, someone once told me something and I hope you take it to heart."

Rose grumbled and moved her gaze from the floor to the headmasters' face.

"What's that sir?"

Ozpin smiled down at her.

"You are young and have much to learn, no one expects you to be perfect. Just be better tomorrow than you are today, and you will get their eventually."

* * *

 **And welcome to the bottom once again.**

 **Not much to say on this one. Basically one of the main things i wanted was for Rose to approach Ozpin instead of Weiss about her suitability to be a teacher. I wanted more of a "Just do better tomorrow than today" type of thing than they had in the show. Kinda found it odd how they acted like first years should be competent. And figure showing Ozpin understands they need to grow into their positions would work well.**

 **I also decided to introduce Raven sooner to the rest of the crew. Figured after Weiss talking about something important and family related Yang would respond in kind.**

 **Also I'm having Ozpin call Rose Miss Rose mostly because I use search commands for Yangs name and it kept changing Roses name :P**

 **Not much else to say, thanks for reading. If you enjoyed follow, favorite and review and all that jazz.**


	16. History

**AN: Heyo Colors back again. Bit of an odd chapter. It's mostly History class with Oobleck. I have made some changes to the layout of continents in the world of Remnant, and this will be the first mention of previous Nations in the world. But I'll save the explanations for the end and inside the chapter. I hope you enjoy.**

* * *

Volume 1 Chapter 15: History

* * *

"Do you ever get the feeling of Déjà vu, Qrow?" I ask my partner who is slouched on a sofa next to me in the dorm's communal area. We are both studying for a quiz in Grimm studies the professor decided to surprise us with. The table is piled with what can generously be described as "notes" but more realistically be summed up as, "random doodles".

I don't think either of us are going to do very well.

At least we should do better than Tai and Raven. Rae isn't bothering to study at all and Tai is passed out face down on the floor spread eagle. He looks like someone just ran up behind him and clocked him over the head. If it wasn't for the gentle sound of his snoring I would probably think he is dead.

Qrow shook the sleep from his eyes and thought for a moment. "I don't know. I've had the thing where you have a dream that is similar to something that happens later. Does that count?"

I can only shrug at that.

"I don't know. To me it feels like I'm forgetting something and then it goes away when I see certain things or when we learn something in class."

Qrow holds up the book in his lap and pretends to read it while I stare at him. I know he is pretending because he is holding it upside down. He's such a bird-brain.

"My parents always told me that if you think something is off, than something probably is. That leaves us only 3 options." He snaps the book shut and tosses it onto Tai's back.

"What are those?"

He grins widely and leans in close.

"Well option one, you get more sleep, stress is bad for you. Option two is we perform an exorcism on the dorm to get rid of whatever ghost is possessing the place."

I'm most certainly not stressed, and their... probably isn't a ghost haunting the building? Gosh Qrow can be such a spaz.

"And option three?"

My partner leans close and gives me a quick kiss.

"Want to go to the movies tomorrow to celebrate failing a quiz?"

I changed my mind. He isn't a spaz. He's a moron.

Wait, why am I blushing? THAT WASN"T EVEN ROMANTIC DAMNIT!

I karate chop him on the head.

"GAAAAH! TRY HARDER QROW! ROMANCE! ROMANCE!"

* * *

"Yang, do you ever get the feeling of Déjà vu?"

Yang turns to her sister and nods. "Yeah. Mostly because that's the third time you have asked me. Did you finally break down and play Overwatch?"

The red cloaked girl frowns and opens her mouth to make what could only have been a very witty, well-formed retort when the door to the classroom is thrown open and a blur moves from the door to the front of the room.

"GoodmorningclassIamDoctorOobleckIwillbeteachingyouhistorythisyearnowdoeseveryonehavethecorrectclassroomitwouldbeashameifsomeonehadtogetupandleavehalfwaythrough." The strange thin man paused and took a deep gulping sup from a thermos.

Rose sighed and activated her semblance. Without moving it gave the appearance of rose petals dripping from her body like blood. Around her the world slowed and her ability to perceive the world around her slowed to a crawl. Every muscle in her body thrummed with energy, wanting to do nothing other than break into a full sprint around the room.

She schooled her thoughts and got her overly excited limbs under control and focused her attention on the now slightly sluggish sounding teacher.

"No one? Good. As I was saying, I will be your instructor in the History of remnant! Yes, I know it is not a very exciting or glamorous subject but it is vitally important that tomorrows Hunters learn to avoid the mistakes of your predecessors."

 _Why does every single history teacher say that nonsense?_ Rose rolled her eyes. History wasn't a subject she was particularly fond of. It had absolutely nothing to do with weapons or hunting which limited her interest in it to about the level of knowing it existed at all.

At Signal she would try to catch up on missed sleep during her History classes. She didn't have to sit next to her sister in those classes though. Probably safer not to nap next to a girl more than willing to dump her out of her chair at a moment's notice.

Professor Oobleck jabbed a finger in the face of one of the students in the front row and continued his rant. "For your first lesson I will begin with something that is much more relevant in the modern day. Hopefully this information will prove of some use."

The mad professor took a deep breath, and a massive gulp from his thermos. Rose was almost impressed with his ability to somehow inhale and swallow at the same time. Didn't spill a drop.

"To begin. Over the course of known history there have been dozens of civilizations that have risen to prominence only to collapse into obscurity. Weather caused by internal forces, war with their neighbors, or the constant assault of our eternal enemy the Grimm, sooner or later all nations fall."

With a dramatic wave of a hand the holoprojector lit up with a map of modern Remnant. Three main inhabited continents. Vale in the east, Vacuo to the south, and Atlas and Mistral on the largest of the continents, to the west and northwest respectively.

"CASE IN POINT!" The professor yelled with far too much excitement for someone talking about the doom of civilization. "All of you surely know about the four kingdoms. If you do not, then you need to go outside more."

Rose gave a covert look around the room to see if anyone else was surprised to learn that Atlas and Mistral were separate countries.

 _I must never speak of this._

"Approximately 600 years ago, a long time for you and me, but merely a blink of the eye in the scale of the entire history, their stood a great nation to the north of Mistral, in what is now arctic wastes."

A hand shot up into the air and the professor gave them a quick nod.

"Professor-" "DOCTOR!" The teacher barked. "Errm.. Doctor Oobleck, if a country existed their so recently, why aren't we taught about it in school as kids?"

"EXCELLENT QUESTION!" The Doctor yells. The student is surprised so much he falls back over his chair and onto the floor.

"The reason is readily obvious if you take the time to think about it rationally. Anyone? Anyone at all know why we don't go out of our way to remind the masses of how often entire nations cease to exist?"

Next to Rose her team all looks thoughtful as they think on the question. A few whispers here and their pop up in the room as well.

 _Idiots. It's painfully obvious._ Rose grumbles internally. How could Hunters in training not remember the most important fact about Grimm?

She raises her hand, much to Yang's surprise.

"Yes Miss..." The Doctor looks at a sheet of paper on his desk and looks confused for a moment, "Xiao Long."

"Grimm are attracted to negative emotions, namely fear. If the general public was reminded often that cities, identical to the ones they live in, were destroyed hundreds of times before it would only increase the threat of the Grimm and causing more cities to fall in a domino effect."

"EXCELLENT MISS LONG!" The man pushed his glasses up his nose and resumed his frantic pacing. "It is imperative as hunters that not only do we kill the Grimm themselves, but we keep the public _feeling_ as calm and secure as possible, even if it requires us to mislead them. It is similar to how information on the Great War is so hard to come by, because Hunter's after the war took steps to suppress it from the public."

"But back to the original topic."

* * *

Far to the north.

A land of green and plenty hidden behind impassable mountains of snow and ice.

One nation stood, exalted above all others on Remnant.

Coryza ruled indomitably over the other nations of the age. All Thirteen great kingdoms were little more than vassals in their great empire. Like children to a mighty parent.

While today Atlas is renowned for its technology, Vale for its Hunters, Vacuo for its mines and natural resources, and Mistral for their great library's and oneness with the world. Coryza had all that and more.

Their technologies were vastly superior in every aspect be it military or otherwise.

But the one thing the great empire was best at, was their ability to change the very things that made a person a person. They could change ever little detail about a person. Their strength, intelligence, speed. Even their ability to use aura and the power of their semblance could be controlled.

With this incredible advantage there was no force in the world that could come close to them.

Coryza ruled over their neighbors with an iron fist. Demanding tributes of iron, steel, wood, and precious materials from their lesser. Any nation that failed to deliver would face instant retribution.

But powerful neighbors have always taken advantage of their weaker brethren, so they could live with such things. What they could not accept however, were the sacrifices.

Each year, all thirteen nations were required to send thousands of newborn babies. The children were ripped from mother's arms, placed into frigid train carts full of ice and sent north never to be seen again.

Despite these atrocities however, the nations were unwilling to openly rebel against their master.

What the other nations did not know, was that as bad as they had it, the people of Coryza had it far, far worse.

The government ruled with an iron fist. Anything their scientists needed to advance their technologies, especially their mastery over the human body, was immediately granted. Millions of their own citizens were sent to labor camps where they would either be worked to death or used in diabolical experiments. Millions more were "deconstructed" to be used as raw materials for experiments or augmentations for the nobility.

Two years before the nation fell, open rebellion broke out over the entire countryside. Entire cities, far larger than Vale in size revolted and threw down their oppressors. Thousands of nobles were dragged from their mansions and butchered in the streets. Almost overnight, the most powerful nation in the world descended into chaos.

The civil war was brutal. Dozens of cities of millions of people were wiped off the map. Between the nationalists, the rebels, and foreign soldiers trying to carve valuable scraps out of the nation, there was no shortage of people ready to kill anything that got in their way.

Coryza had one last trick up its sleeve however. One last way to end the war for good and regain control over all of Remnant. A great weapon of terrible power, capable of destroyer a nation in an instant.

The rebels of course could not let it remain in the hands of the imperial scientists, and the other nations all flooded their own troops into the war-torn country in an effort to claim it for themselves. The capitol city turned into a graveyard overnight as tens of millions of soldiers on all sides were ruthlessly slaughtered over the weapon.

On the final day of fighting, just as the rebels were on the verge of taking the weapon, a flash of light lit up the sky and Coryza was no more.

That fateful day, the weapon was activated in all its glory. In an instant, the entire country was covered in ice. All three armies fell, instantly frozen in place where they stood. Not even the Grimm were immune. Massive goliaths standing like mocking caricatures of their powerful selves.

In seconds, billions of lives were snuffed out of existence.

And thus, the great Coryza Empire fell.

But not all of its citizens suffered such a fate.

Like any war, refugees poured from their borders like blood from a mortal wound.

These people, mostly displaced nobility and upper class, were unwelcome in any of the 13 nations which were so terrorized by their homeland and so were shunned to the edges of society. They were known in their tongue as the, "Refugees from the Empire of Frost", but that was eventually shortened to simply, Refugee.

Or as it is said in their language. Faunus.

* * *

The classroom was eerily silent when Doctor Oobleck finished his tale. Most of the students were staring in front of themselves in shock at either the reveal, or the shear amount of death that happened in such a powerful country. The Faunus students looks far worse for wear as well.

"Ho-ly shiiiiit." Yang mumbled under her breath. The blonde girl let out a deep tired sigh and seamed to crumble in on herself slightly. Throughout the story she couldn't help but be reminded of the ruins during their trial. Ever so slowly she felt that heavy weight fall back on her shoulders.

"As you might be noticing, such depressing tales generate a lot of negative emotions." The professors voice had lost most of its charm and excitement. Now he just sounded tired. "As Hunter's you are entitled to know exactly what you are fighting for, and what risks the world faces every day. It is our burden to bear, our responsibility to take charge of it so the public does not have to be weighed down with this duty."

Weiss looked positively ill at the thought. Blake just looked dead inside.

Rose, on the other hand, was drawing a battlefield frozen in ice and humming quietly to herself.

"Coryza was not the first bastion of civilization to fall, and it certainly won't be the last. Everything that begins eventually comes to an end. There is nothing you can do to change that. What is important, is how things end. The tragedy in Coryza could have easily been averted if the people involved looked at their predecessors and realized their infighting would destroy them. But they did not."

The professor pushed up his glasses and gathered up his things.

"That students is why we _do_ learn from the past. We don't have any countries left to waste."

 _Well that's fucking depressing._

* * *

 ** _Welcome to the bottom of the page!_**

 ** _Thank you for reading, and all that jazz._**

 ** _So this is my version of why Faunus exist. Essentially the animal traits are the results of genetic manipulation in Coryza, and the initial reasoning for the racism before it became full on slavery was lingering hatred for their country of origin._**

 _ **I also mentioned that their were 13 nations other than Coyyza. In my version of the history, several nations were completely destroyed during the great war. After all, mine is less a massive foot war with armies, and more a "Nuclear Annihilation" type of situation.**_

 _ **Well that's pretty much all I had to say. The entire story part isn't exactly in Ooblecks voice, and i spent some time trying to figure it out to write in his tone. But that was basically me inhaling a shit ton of air and trying to talk fast, than write it down. Mostly it just served to get my lightheaded and spell really poorly. :P**_


	17. Ear Biter

**AN: Heyo, Colors here. This chapter is a bit disconnected from the last. And it takes place about a month later. I was going to have another chapter in front of it, but I couldn't get it out of my head. I might rearrange some chapters at some point so this one is before something i write next, but it doesn't particularly matter yet.**

 **Oh, and if you dislike the OOC stuff i have been doing, you are not going to like this chapter.**

 **Also i wrote this in about... 15 minutes. So I expect the prose is absolute trash. Or as I like to call it, my average prose.**

* * *

Volume 1 Chapter 16: Ear Biter

* * *

Jaune was not having a very good time.

Sure, he was at Beacon, and learning how to be a Hunter. For the most part the first month of schooling went well. He got along with his team, and most of the other teams. And despite his obvious lack of knowledge on certain subjects he was quickly catching up where it mattered.

It helped that his beautiful partner Pyrrha was teaching him the finer points of fighting his teacher had neglected to mention. Namely the whole, "using a sword" thing. Which apparently was kind of important.

No, his issues lay with the leader of team CRDL, Cardin Winchester.

You see, Jaune was being bullied.

"For the last time guys, he's not bullying me." Jaune mumbled into his food. All of team JNPR and RWBY were sitting together for lunch, all but Rose were busy discussing his problem. They had been spending the entirety of breakfast trying to get him to, as Nora so eloquently put it, "Man the fuck up and open the can of whup ass on the plebian masses who have earn his righteous fury!"

She could be quite poetic on occasion. Her first suggestion was just to break Cardin's legs.

Unfortunately, Jaune was an idiot and refused to admit it to his team.

Yang shook her head and groaned in frustration. "Don't be a dingus. He is definitely bullying you."

And thus the argument continued.

"Is he blackmailing you?"

Jaune flinched quite noticeably and looked nervously over the table towards Rose, who was sitting as far away from him as possible. "N-no. What makes you th-think that?"

Rose set aside her notebook filled with sketches of the next iteration of Red Dragon and frowned at the other team leader. "You have no reason to be scared of him. He can't effectively hurt you because Pyrrha or Nora would kill him. Also, you almost fell out of your chair when I mentioned it."

The red cloaked girl got up from her chair and set her things on the table and walked away without another word. Yang stared after her sister for a moment before continuing her thought. "Yeah Jaune. If he's got dirt on you, the worst thing to do is just roll over. You got to either discredit him or get something in return so he can't do anything."

"AND THAN WE BREAK HIS LEGS!" Nora screamed manically.

"Let's exhaust less violent methods first, shall we?" mumbled Ren. The tan young man pulled on the back of his partners shirt to settle her back in her chair, but the glow in her eyes made her excitement at the prospect quite noticeable to the table.

 _We need to think of a plan before she does something stupid_. Yang thought.

"Wow what a prick." Blake said to the group, pointing past Jaune.

The prick in question, was the R in team CRDL who along with Cardin were the two bullies on campus. This fine morning found them both picking on a faunus girl with big bunny ears. Each took turns pulling on them, clearly making the girl uncomfortable, and ignoring all of her protests.

Weiss and Blakes glares drilled into the two and both were on the verge up getting out of their seats when their leader slowly walked up to the two bullies who were still taunting the purple haired rabbit girl.

Cardin turned to Rose with that kind of shifty grin you just want to punch off of someone's face. "You want in on this?" The young man pulled harder on the girl's ear, drawing a squawk of pain.

He should have noticed something was wrong when Roses impassive face curled into indignant rage, but by the time he could react a fist was already impacting with his face.

Cardin fell backwards against the table with a groan of pain releasing the purple haired girl who wisely chose to duck her head and hurry away. The boy began to push himself up on his elbows and opened his mouth to yell what was mostly likely going to be an obscenity. he did not get that chance however as Rose launched herself into the air and twirled herself around before bringing her heavy booted foot down like a hammer on his stomach.

Rose left the boy gasping for breath and trying his hardest to keep his food inside his body where it belonged, instead she turned her attention to Russel, who was backing away nervously with his hands held up, palms towards her in a sign of surrender.

"I-I don't know what yo-" "Shut up moron." Rose interrupted. "Maybe you don't know this, maybe you do, but the teachers don't get in the way of students bullying each other because they need to be strong enough to fight their own battles." Rose shot forward and drove her foot into the side of his knee with a sickening crack. Russel let out a pained scream and fell to the ground whimpering pitifully and clutching his broken leg.

"As long as no one causes any injuries that aura can't fix. The teachers don't care what I do to you. It's your fault for being too _weak_ to stop me."

Russel paled when he looked up at the smiling silver eyed face staring down at him. Her eyes flashed brightly before her foot came down on his face, and everything went black.

* * *

Rose had her hands on her hips and was glaring down at the members of JNPR and RWBY, who were staring at her wide eyed and open mouthed in various stages of shock and incredulity.

Except Nora. She looked like she just found the love of her life.

"Close your mouths or bugs will fly in them."

Seven sets of teeth clacking together rang out. The still wide-eyed friends all thought for a moment before choosing to speak at the exact same time.

"THAT WAS AWESOME!"

"Why did you DO THAT!?"

"Are they okay?"

"ARE YOU SEEING ANYONE!?"

"DID QROW TELL YOU TO DO THAT!?"

"Wow. That looked satisfying."

Jaune didn't quite manage to say human words.

Yang held her face in her hands and groaned in mourning for her sister. "Why... why did my sister have to be corrupted by that vagabond... Now we won't have a leader! HOW CAN I GRADUATE WITHOUT A LEADER!"

Blake and Weiss shared a worried look and both nodded to their glorious leader. "Yeah Rose, you just assaulted two students, you could get kicked out for that."

Rose just shrugged at that and returned to drawing in her book. Over her shoulder Weiss could see Cardin limping towards a bathroom door, clutching his stomach with one arm and clamping another over his mouth.

"I asked dad and Uncle Qrow. It's like I said, they don't care if you fight of put down others as long as you can back it up."

"That's! That- that's just... that is imp... WHAT?!" Weiss sputtered angrily. She held the table in a death grip that threatened to tear it in half with her aura infused grip. "Are they IDIOTS!? This school is supposed to be training HEROS! Not barbarians!"

"As much as I would normally dislike needless violence, I must admit it was quite satisfying seeing those two put in their place." Pyrrha put in from her place next ot Jaune. The worried look she held earlier had been replaced by a wistful smile. She no doubt was imagining herself in the place of Rose, pummeling the idiot bullies who dared harm her partner.

After all, how was he ever going to get washboard abs if he was constantly stressed?

She definitely had her priorities straight.

"Rose, you CANT just do something because that drunken reprobate says it's okay!" Yang shouts at her sister, eyes shifting between lilac and red rapidly.

"Excuse me?" A timid, oddly accented voice says. The entire group turns to look at the purple haired girl Rose helped. The girl in question was thin with pale skin and shoulder length wave purple hair. And of course, two big floppy rabbit ears on her head. Her eyes were also a deep rich purple that shone like little amethysts. And like everyone else, she wore her school uniform.

"I'm Velvet Scarlatina, I wanted to thank you for- GAH!" The girl shrieked and the teams stared wide eyed at Rose, who had shot to her feet and yanked on the girls' ear roughly.

"I didn't do it because I wanted to help you. You idiot faunus." Rose growled angrily and she tweaked the ear more, drawing out a gasping hiss. "I did it because I don't like people who pretend to be strong and throw their weight around."

Rose pulled the girls face closer to hears. "But if there's one thing I dislike more, its _strong_ people who pretend to be _weak_. You are a second year and somehow those cast off worthless idiots were doing whatever they wanted with you. It's _pathetic._ Even if you _are_ actually a damned rabbit you should still have enough self-respect not to just roll over and die."

Rose let go of the girl's ear, grabbed her things, and stomped away without another word, completely ignoring the indignant shouts form her sister.

And the death glare from Blake.

* * *

 **And here is the bottom of the chapter!**

 **This scene was one of the first ones i thought of when i changed Rose's personality. I liked the idea of her stopping the bullies and immediately yanking on her ear as well, but i spread it out to when Velvet thanks her so i could have her introduce herself.**

 **As you have noticed, i changed Velvets appearance. Mostly because i wouldn't remember her actual appearance, in fact i forgot her name while writing this which is why she isn't named immediately.**

 **Her semblance is pretty much the same, what I will do with it is make it so she copies peoples skills. And needs her hardlight thing to make weapons she can use. But because Hunter's use their semblance so much in their fighting she eventually will need to borrow the strength of extremely skilled duelists who dont use aura so she gets pure skill without the gaps. I plan on having sort of a... teams going on field trips type of situation later, and she will be going to Mistral to see a tournament and photograph the fighters. I want to give her power more of an interesting hook compared to her generic and kinda trash use in the story.**

 **Especially since i hope to make her an actual character instead of a background Rabbit you only notice because of her accent that stands out far too much.**

 **But that's enough of my complaints and rationalizations/excuses. I hope you all enjoyed the chapter, and have a wonderful day.**


	18. Examination

**AN: Heyo. Colors back with another chapter. Not much to say, lots of info dumping in this one.**

* * *

Volume 1 Chapter 17: Examination

* * *

Klara stared imperiously down... well mostly up at her class. Few managed to hold her gaze without looking away in fear. Utter terror! UNDENIABLE FEALINGS OF INFERIORITY!

They definitely weren't trying not to laugh at the sight of a little girl wearing bright pink pajamas glaring at them with her hands on her hips.

Simply ridiculous to even suggest such a thing.

"I'm sure all of you are wondering why I spent the first month of class forcing you to fluctuate your aura and nothing else. Well today is the day you get to read the rewards for your hard work!" The small white-haired girl threw her hands over her head and cheered like a kid getting a present. She forgot she was holding the long-forgotten syllabi and those went flying out of her hand and rained down on the first row of students.

Most of the students muttered their affirmation to her question. All but the students trying to collect the papers strewn about.

"IF ALL OF YOUR WILL TAKE OUT YOUR SCROLLS AND OPEN THE APPLICATION ONCE AGAIN!" Klara screamed at the top of her lungs.

 _She's lost it. She is going to kill us all._ Rose thought as she pulled herself back into her chair. Blake was in a similar predicament, while Yang and Weiss both stared in a mix of confusion and curiosity.

They did eventually manage to open their scrolls although their teacher seemed to have completely lost patience for their slowness.

"OPEN IT! RUN IT! DO IT NOW! CLICK THE BUTTON!"

Rose gave one last weirded out look at their teacher before tapping the calibrate button again. The scroll let out a beap and a bar slowly began to fill.

"It may take a minute or two. But since you spent all weakened using NO AURA WHATSOEVER LIKE I SPECIFICALLY INSTRUCTED YOU!" The child teacher gasp for breath, "You should get a good new reading on your current maximum aura."

"HOLY COW! 347%?!" Yang shouted and jumped to her feat.

"Yes Miss... Umm..." Klara held her scroll in front of her face and flipped through it, "I cant pronounce that. Miss Yang. Until coming to Beacon, many of you have done next to nothing to "stretch your muscles" so to speak when it comes to aura. You have trained your bodies extensively, but your aura was neglected. This first month was a combination of stretched out your aura to increase your maximums quickly, and one other detail I will explain after everyone is finished calibrating."

BEEP!

Rose almost fell out of her chair when Blakes scroll let out a shrill noise beside her.

"260%. Not bad I guess."

Weiss held up her own scroll with a massive grin on her face.

"280! HAHAH! I win!"

Blake stuck out her tongue at the heiress and blew a raspberry at her.

All arround the classroom students started sharing their counts with eachother, leaning together and yelling at eachother from across the room when someone would beat their score.

"If you would look to the holoboard you will see everyones results ranked."

As one the class looked to the front of the room. On the massive bright blue screen the twnty names were listed in order of improvement. Yang stood at the top with her impressive 347. Suprsisingly Jaune was just a few shy of her with his equally impressive 335.

BEEP!

Roses scroll finally finished her calibrating and she whipped it up to look at her score.

"Well sis? What did you get?"

A chill went through Roses body and sunk deep into her stomach as she took in the number. She looked through her scroll at the board where she could see her name now resided.

In dead last.

Weiss and Blake both seemed to notice at the same time.

"Wha- Only 103%? It barely changed at all!"

 _Fuck._

* * *

Klara nodded to herself upon checking the scoreboard. Nothing quite out of the ordinary so far. A few of the middling ones did better or worse depending on how much they actually pushed themselves over the past month, but for the most part the top tier and bottom tier students were about what she expected.

A quiet glass crunching sound came from behind her and she pulled open a drawer on her desk and took out a new scroll from a large stack of unused ones.

Klara hoped no one would break their scroll today, but there would always be one.

She could only hope the 2nd 3rd and 4th years didn't break even more of them. They were expensive.

Without saying a word, the childish teacher tossed the new scroll to Rose. The red cloaked girls hand was clenched tight enough that what once remained of her scroll resembled a crushed soda can more than a piece of cutting edge technology.

Klara couldn't help but feal a little sorry for the girl. Only a three percent increase in a month was simply terrible, especially considering her below average aura levels to begin with. After her sisters monumental increase she probably had less than a tenth of the blond bombshells total aura.

So all in all breaking a scroll in rage was not unexpected. At least she was reacting better than Summer did when she learned of her auras significant weakness. They had to replace half the desks in the classroom.

Not to mention a couple of walls she tore through on her way out.

 _And somehow, I was the only person who didn't like her. Odd_.

But this is no time for reminiscing. Onto class.

"Okay students and studettes. Now that you have stretched your auras, it is time for me to explain to you exactly _what_ a semblance is." The professor sighed and shook her head sadly, "Unfortunately the general public has a lot of misconceptions about them, but as an Auramancer I can assure you that I know better than all but... maybe one person on Remnant right now."

The girl smirked and hopped up onto her desk and sat down cross legged on top of it.

"Not to brag, but I'm pretty good at it."

A weight settled onto all the students, freezing them in place. They all felt like something was pushing down on their wrists at once, like someone was squeezing their hands in a crushing grip. Some students held their hands in front of them to check nothing was actually touching them, and some groaned in discomfort from the uncomfortable sentation.

"What I am doing, my little pups, is forcing my Aura through the Foci in your wrists where the majority of your Aura channels lead too. Before this month, It would have been excuciatingly painful for me to do and likely would have resulted in several of your deaths, but the strain I put you under with my lessons forced open most of your channels in a much more natural way."

The crushing sensation passed further up their arms and gradually transformed from a tight squeezing to an odd tingling sensation, like a pinched nerve slowly shifting position around their body.

"I could also have gone through your Eyes, which would be faster and require less strenuous training beforehand. I chose not too for several reasons, the main one is that doing so would have caused all of you to vomit your breakfast all over the floor, and I'm not willing to clean that up."

Klara gave Rose a quick glance, unnoticed by the girl who was busy staring at her arms as the sensation slowly traveled up it. The tingling flowed past her shoulders and flooded the rest of her body, leaving her feeling lightheaded and like she was floating on thin air. How long she was in that state she had no idea, but as quick as the odd feeling overcame her, it was gone as the aura slid back out of her Foci.

"See? Over in a flash. Just like I told... you." Klara looked around at the muddle headed studdents who were pretty much all shaking their heads in an effort to wake themselves back up and focus on what their teacher was saying. "Errr.. Whoops. Forgot that foreign aura in your spinal cord gets you stoned pretty much instantly."

Thankfully the effect was only temporary. Klara couldn't imagine the pain of having to instruct 40 students who were high as a kite all the time.

"AS I WAS SAYING!" Klara yelled and snapped her fingers with a ear blasting KRACK! The sound was carried along with a blast of sharp aura that cut through the students haze and brought them back to the world.

"As I was saying." She continued more calmly, "Your semblance is the outward manifestation of aura. For the longest time nobody knew how they worked. Some past through bloodlines, and others randomly changed. This all changed when the first true Auramancers appeared, long ago in a time long lost to modern memory."

The students stared in awe as ghostly gears appeared in the girls pinkish-red eyes and began turning ever so slowly. Klara waved a hand at her eyes and let the gears slowly fade from existence. "These are one of the many gifts and auramancer obtains over their training. The amount of pure aura focused in their eyes allows them to perfectly few not only aura, but the miniscule parts of the body that one uses to channel it. Most important for us, the random strings of code that control your semblance."

"You see, your semblance works much like a computer program, or genetic code. It's made up of trillions of lines of gibberish. Most not doing anything useful or colliding with other parts and nullifying effects. But some strings of code are cohesive enough to work. Thousands of years ago Semblances were simple things, formed by random bits and bobs, but over time as those with semblances had children with each other and those without semblances died more and more in comparison, far more people with working code began appearing."

"Of course, knowing your own code is very important, and understanding the ins and outs of it, as well as cleaning it up to remove useless bits and pieces, is something of a rite of passage among auramancers. That isn't to say normal Hunter's shouldn't attempt to do so either, it's just easier for someone who is more attuned to aura."

"For example."

Rose jumped in shock as the teacher suddenly appeared directly in front of her. From all over the girl fell a cloud of gray rose petals that slowly fell to the floor and evaporated into nothing.

"With the proper knowledge, copying others semblances is child's play."

Klara spend back in a flash to the front of the classroom and smiled gleefully at the shocked faces of her class.

"This is something that is important to keep in mind. No matter how strange or outlandish the semblance, always remember that at the most basic level it can be broken down to logical commands. If you can examine an opponent's semblance enough that you can pick apart the small details, you can easily overcome them."

"Be it channeling electricity"

Lightning arced between the ground and the professor.

"Magnetism."

The desks rose slightly off the ground before settling back to the floor.

"Or even annihilation."

The professors white hair flared a brilliant yellow and flames licked at her body.

"All of these can be broken down to fairly simple commands. The tricky part is figuring out the basic function and separating it from the garbage surrounding it."

The flames slowly dispersed and the petite girl let out a breath. To say she enjoyed the wide eyed awed looks of the class was an understatement. Having an opportunity to cut loose and show off the abilities of an Auramancer wasn't something she typically had an excuse to do in situation where the other party wasn't going to wind up dead.

"All the "garbage code" as I put it, takes up aura, even if tiny amounts. So, a major part of fine tuning your aura use will be removing these segments of trash from your semblance. With my help of course. I will examine your semblance one on one and give advice and assistance with not only the inner working of how your semblance truly functions logically, but also guide you in removing the trash."

Klara clapped her hands excitedly in front of her and smiled up at the class. This was going to be so much fun. She enjoyed few things more than playing with semblances.

"So. Who wants to go first?"

Forty hands shot into the air.

* * *

Yang squinted her eyes in confusion at her tiny teacher. The two of them were in another classroom just down the hall from the normal classroom where each one on one examination was being held.

"What do you mean annihilation? I don't annihilate anything."

Klara nodded her head and let the gears fade form her eyes.

"On the macro scale yes. Keep in mind there is quite the difference between the small things that are _actually_ happening, and the end result. To put it another way, you are looking at the surface of some boiling water, and not at all seeing the fire beneath that is actually causing the end effect."

"That... is still confusing." yang mumbled and rubbed the back of her head. She _knew_ what her semblance did. It let her take hits and dish them back to the enemy? Right?

And also, you know, set her on fire sometimes when she was angry enough.

"Let me put it this way. When you take a hit part of your semblance annihilates the kinetic energy of the blow and turns it into pure aura. You should be able to find quite a few uses for it beyond just fighting as well, probided you can keep the extra aura under control. Otherwise all the extra aura will just get burned up as flames when it leaks through your Foci."

Yang's confusion seamed to slightly alleviate at that, because the young woman had a thoughtful look on her face when she nodded.

"That's your homework by the way."

"WHAT!?"

* * *

"Your semblance is stupid. I'm surprised you managed not to accidentally kill yourself yet."

Cardin's eyes were dead and his mouth was hanging open so Klara reached up and pushed it closed with a finger.

"On the plus side you actually don't have much trash so optimizing it shouldn't be too difficult."

* * *

Pyrrha did not enjoy the death glare her professor was giving her. She didn't know the reason but it certainly couldn't be good.

"Ummm.. Prof-" "Use your semblance openly during the next combat class or I will expel you." Klara interrupted. She pointed an accusing finger at the tall red heads face and contiuned on ignoring the girls sputtering. "You are here to learn to Hunt. Not duel. If I watch another recording of you during combat class pretending not to use your semblance instead of pushing it to the fullest, I will have you on an airship back to Mistral faster than you can think."

Pyrrha shut her mouth tight with a clack of teeth hitting each other and gave a jerky nod. "Y-yes m-ma'am."

"Also your homework is to write a 500 page essay on electroweak interaction."

* * *

"Schnee Glyphs. Ask your sister I already told her. Boring. NEXT!"

Klara booted Weiss out the door and waved in the next student.

* * *

Rose was beginning to feal uncomfortable under the intense scrutiny of her teacher. The red cloaked girl's questions about her lack of growth had been mostly ignored beyond a handwave and telling her "not to worry about It". Once the two were alone in the room and Klara began examining her from head to toe the professor immediately told her to sit still and not move a single muscle.

That was about twenty minutes ago.

"Is something wrong?" Rose asked hesitantly.

Klara started as if she didn't expect her to ever say anything and shook her head slowly.

"No. No not wrong. Just... it's not important."

 _It certainly sounds important._

"SO!" Klara shouted to break Rose out of her train of thought and began ranting about the girls semblance. Rose could barely catch the words, "Similar to your sister," and "Siphon kinetic energy." Before the oddly flustered teacher shoved her out the door and slammed it shut behind her.

* * *

Minutes later. Two to be exact. Klara barged into Headmaster Ozpins office, where he was having a rather heated discussion with Professor Goodwitch. The stern woman glared at the new entrant with undisguised disdain.

"What are you doing here? Don't you have a class to teach?"

Klara ignored her venomous tone and marched forward to plant both her palms on the desk in front of Ozpin.

"We have a big fucking problem Ozy."

The serious no nonsense attitude had its intended effect on them both and Ozpin nodded his head slowly.

"Go on Klara, what have you discovered."

Klara took a deep breath and slowly let it out.

"The girl. Rose. She has them both."

Glynda gasped and Ozpin pressed the heels of both hands against his eyes.

"How bad is it?"

"Bad. They are conflicting and annihilating her aura. If she uses both of them full blast Friede will annihilate Winter." She paused to let that sink in for a moment.

"And if that happens, everyone in Vale will die."

* * *

 **Welcome to the bottom of the chapter.**

 **Just noticed I forgot to include Jaune's section in the hole... semblance thing. Basically his semblance for me is amplifying the amount of aura you have temporarily in exchange for being weakened later. He is pretty much the only one so far who's semblance is conducive to becoming an Auramancer.**

 **Oh. and i finally included the seasons and silver eyes again. As you have probably read into it, Rose has both the Silver eyes and Winter powers. Which is pretty fucking terrible because my version of them dont mix well. The idea so far is using both at the same time will convert the energy into hard radiation, potentially killing anyone who doesnt have aura nearby if they activate at the same time.**

 **As to how she got the powers of Winter, from someone thinking of her, and the Silver eyes from someone who isn't her parent. Well I dont wanna say it even though it's quite obvious.**

 **Oh, and Friede is the name of the person who made the Silver eyes. The little girl from the interlude. Yes, i did name her after the Dark Souls 3 character, I couldnt resist because she uses a scythe hahaha.**

 **Also, because Rose is A Friede... and she is alway afraid...**

 **Im so fucking hilarious.**


	19. Little Talks

**AN: Heyo Colors here with another chapter. This one is longer than I expected, around 5200 words. I originally planned on writing this chapter as if it took place in week 1 and just inserting it in an earlier chapter and pushing the rest forward, but I decided just to skip a month ahead for convenience.**

 **Edit: Came back and fixed a few spelling mistakes. Called a roof a room like 10 god damned times. fakkin autocorrect has failed me again!**

* * *

Volume 1 Chapter 18: Little Talks

* * *

The first month of Professor Peach's weapon customization class was boring to say the least.

The loud boisterous professor spent the first day going over the syllabus, standards stuff really.

She than spent the second day going over safety...

And the third day going over safety...

And the next... safety.

Somehow to the confusion of all the students, the class on _making_ their weapons has a thousand times as many safety instructions and rules than the class for actually _using_ the darn things. Of the twenty students in team RWBYs class, only Weiss was able to feign some sort of interest for the entire month of safety lectures. Even Pyrrha, who tried so hard to pretend to care, eventually caved to the monotony and boredom and began playing games on the scroll with the rest of the class.

Luckily for them Beacon was similar to seemingly every other school on remnant, in that for whatever reason they had the demos for "Ringworld", "Warfield 2", and "Pre-emptive Strike 1.6" installed on the shared drive normally reserved for teachers.

All they had to worry about was Nora's excited shouts whenever she got in a Wraith.

BUT!

After a entire month of waiting, a month of sitting arround trying not to die of boredom while keeping their aura low because of Klara's bullshit training regimine, FINALLY they would get to actually DO SOMETHING IN CLASS!

They couldn't be happier.

Well, Blake could. The classroom, which resembled a forge more than a place for students to learn, was noisy and full of dust which aggravated her to no end.

* * *

The class sat transfixed when Professor Peach announced they would actually be making weapons.

The teacher stood at the front of the classroom and was ever so slightly obscured by the never-ending clouds of smoke that drifted from the wall of forges behind her. She was about 5 feet tall, wore a white tank top under burnt and charred overalls, had short orange hair that ended just below her ears, tanned skin that had the texture of worn leather, and was built like a tank.

Not that she was made of metal, all of her parts looked original as far as they could tell, she was just short, stocky, and had thick arms that made it look like she wrestled Ursa for a living.

That or worked in a forge.

 _Although being a Hunter, both are probably accurate._ Blake thought to herself.

Her voice also sounded like she had been chewing on rocks and got some of them wedged in the back of her throat. In Blakes opinion she was pretty fucking weird but then again "weird" is a common theme with Hunters.

"Good afternoon class! Now that you understand the proper handling of the equipment we will be using, I will be setting you lose to design the next edition of your wonderful weapons! For the most part I will be here as a resource to you and allow you to find your own path. But please, don't hesitate to ask questions if you need help using something or advise on designs!"

Blake had been looking forward to this class in particular for the last month. Despite the slow start she was interested to learn _actual_ weapon crafting from an _actual_ weapon designer. Peach was no pushover after all and had made some of the best, most intricate weapons in Remnant used by top tier Hunters. Blake didn't have the best training or materials for fashioning her weapon of choice so she wanted to take every opportunity available to expand her knowledge and improve upon her "Baby" as Rose put it.

Unlike Blake, Yang seamed far less interested in the possibilities of the class. She was mostly ignoring the professor and looking around the room for something interesting to look at and judging by the glazed look in her eyes she was failing.

The Schnee, as Blake still found herself calling her internally despite actually being nicer than she expected, looked incredibly nervous for some reason. The white-haired heiress had myrtenaster clutched with a white knuckled grip in front of her and looked like she was about to bolt in terror.

She contrasted quite nicely with her partner.

For the first time since meeting Rose the young red cloaked girl she actually appeared to be genuinely excited about the class. Even combat lessons had been unable to get her enthused due to her lack of ability fighting against humans using weapons. Now the normally lazy girl was bouncing excitedly in her chair and had dozens of sheets of sketch paper laid out on the table. A quick glance showed Blake they were all covered with increasingly intricate and detailed designs for scythes.

Blake was impressed by the obvious attention to detail her leader took with the drawings. Each one not only had dozens of cross cuts and measurements, but massive blocks of choppy chicken scratch notes.

 _Maybe improving Gambol will be easier than I thought._

Perhaps this would provide Blake with an opportunity to learn more about their grouchy leader, maybe get the younger girl to open up to her team.

Of course, first Blake would have to work up the will to talk to the temperamental young Rose.

A daunting task for most.

"Hey Rose," Yang said, she had leaned back to look around Blake to see her sister, "Wanna help us out with our weapons?"

Rose blinked like and owl before nodding slowly. "Yeah sure. Did you need another adjustment for Ember and Celica?"

She gave a nod and pulled the folded-up gauntlets off of her wrists and passed them to her sister. Yang gave Blake a sneaky wink while Rose began going over every inch of the yellow gauntlets. She poked and prodded every joint and connection, twiddled every screw, and measured and remeasured every piece.

"The wear on the pins is what I expected, the front plate will need replacing soon, and one screw is beginning to slip." Rose disassembled the pair of gauntlets in a flash and began pulling similarly colored parts out of the bag she brought along to class. "Did you have any suggestions for improvements? I am planning on replacing some of Red with ceramics to lesson heat damage. Could do the same for you."

Yang sat back in her chair and nodded waved a hand lazily. "If you think that will improve things. Will the Dust-ceramics work better?"

There was a short pause before Rose responded. The girl was so engrossed fiddling and measuring little bits and checking her notes she almost missed her sister saying anything.

"Depends on the dust. Brown will make them almost indestructible from impacts but the little moving bits and bobs will wear out a thousand times faster from the friction. White ceramics would be useless because it would make it too brittle to take a punch, would be better to use white metal instead. You don't need it to be infused with red because your flames aren't as hot as Reds so you shouldn't melt the parts, but red ceramic would work better than normal metal."

Rose took a deep breath after ending her long rant and pulled out a chart. The chart was a materials information list and showed the different purities of dust infused metals and ceramics, along with their mix ratios and physical statistics. "Currently you are using a 10% Red with Steel and chrome mix..." The girl mused. She trailed her finger across the page while muttering under her breath. "If we upgraded it to a 35% ceramic with carbon channels for your aura if should improve everything other than the wear and tear."

Blake and Weiss both stared wide eyed at the young leader as the girl wandered off looking for materials to work on her upgrades for Ember and Celica, muttering to herself all the while.

"Wow. That's impressive." Blake said once the girl was out of hearing range, not that she would notice anyway with her head buried in cabinets looking for etching equipment.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised with how knowledgeable she is in Grimm Studies, and how she fawns over everyone's weapons like they are kittens or something." Weiss added. "Of course, it's slightly undermined by her work in Dust Theory."

Blake and Yang both shivered at the unwelcome memories of those classes. The entire class was based around the grinding of dust crystals safely, and pretty much anything to do with dust. It was very scientific, slow, and full of math that according to Rose, made no since whatsoever. She spent the first day staring blankly not understanding anything despite Yang's words of encouragement and Weiss's shared notes. Each class only got progressively worse as she fell farther and farther behind as she got more and more frustrated.

Eventually leading to her blowing up her worktable and storming out of the class last week.

"That's Rose for you. What she is good at, she is incredible, and what she is bad at, she is so incredibly awful that it's actually kinda impressive." Yang said with a smile, "She tried cooking me and our Dad dinner once, she somehow managed to set the fridge on fire."

Blake opened her mouth to ask for more details on what must have been an incredible story when Rose sprinted back over and dumped armfuls of equipment onto the heavy work desk.

"Rose, before you go crazy on old E and C, give Blake and Weiss a hand with their weapons, will you? They didn't grow up around Hunter's like us."

For a long moment Blake and Weiss fully, expected Rose to refuse and probably tell them to go soak their heads or something. To their surprise the red clad hunter in training instead smiled wide and clapped her hands happily in front of her.

She actually looked like a happy teenager for once.

"Are you two interested in weapon? I never have anyone to talk with about it because Yang cares more about hitting things and no one at Signal would talk to me!" The teens eyes held a desperation and hunger that slightly unnerved Blake but Weiss was too elated at not getting chewed out or having to learn on her own that she didn't care about the asocial girl's oddities.

Not looking like a complete dolt was _far_ more important!

"YES, PLEASE HELP ME! I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT IM DOING!"

Or maybe not more important.

Blake couldn't help but chuckle at the heiress's antics. She and Yang watched on as Weiss fell to her knees in front of Rose and latched onto her legs, pleading frantically for assistance and bemoaning her lack of experience with weapon crafting. The loud girls grabbing was obviously off-putting to Rose and she tried her hardest to pry the girls' fingers from her legs, but the pale fingers had an iron like grip and refused to let go.

"GAH! Stop! I'll help! I'll help! Just stop it!" Rose squeaked out frantically. By now she had gotten her foot up to Weiss's face and was trying to shove her off.

* * *

Rose stared down at the rest of her team from her position on top of the desk. Yang was asleep in her chair so Rose didn't pay her much attention, so she saved her fierce glare for Blake and Weiss.

Mostly Weiss. She was still sour about her getting so clingy.

In each hand Rose held a long block of metal, one white and on black. it wasn't weapons grade metal so they couldn't do anything too useful with it but it was enough for learning.

Plus, it was cheap! Dust infused metal and ceramics cost at least a thousand times as much as normal materials.

She dropped both the soft bars of metal in front of her nervous teammates. They hit the desk with a resounding thud that caused some students to shout in surprise and look over yet somehow managed not to stir Yang.

"We don't have much time left in class left cause of Yang, so for now we will just go over rough sketching." Rose said with a grin. Despite her lack of patience for people she actually found explaining weapon knowledge to be quite entertaining.

She hopped off the table across from the monochromatic pair and pulled out a large sheet of semi-transparent sketching paper and began to lay it out over the table.

"The way I like to star when I'm making a super rough attempt, just so I have an idea of the three-dimensional shape of the thing I make, is sketch directly on the soft metal. That way I can have a mental image of what I am going for and its easier to build over time."

Weiss pulled her piece of white metal closer to herself and frowned thoughtfully, "So... like carving or art? You discover it as you go?"

She received a nod from Rose, along with a broad headed pencil.

"I guess so. The final product will have a million measurements taken of it before construction, and it's almost impossible to just invent up that kind of precision in your head and trying to do so just gets in the way of your creative process."

Rose lifted her own block of metal, this one wasn't a soft bit of practice slag but and entire bar of high grade wind dust infused ceramic. The block was a strange sight even compared to the colorful materials the class was working with. it was about as long as Roses forearm and shock around as a broomstick. Most noticeably however, was that it was almost completely clear. Instead of a chuck of ceramic sitting on the table it looks more like a green tinted piece of glass.

"I have more practice though, and already took a few hundred pages of notes. I'll just go right on to the final work."

A snap of her fingers guaranteed the two girls were paying attention and she began to sketch an outline of her design on the flat top of the material. Blake and Weiss sat transfixed, Rose didn't do it like they had expected or like anyone else in the class they saw. She had all the measurements memorized and used her semblance to draw dozens of perfectly straight lines a second. Each little line wasn't actually a part of the design, but when all the hundreds of little scrapes came together they coalesced into a detailed image.

Although what the image was of, neither girl could say. It looked nothing like any part of her Scythe they could recognize and they lacked the knowledge of the other student's weapons to know if she was redesigning something based one of them. Weiss was still a little nervous especially after getting kicked in the face by Rose so Blake chose to ask the obvious question.

"What is that going to be? Is it a new part for Red Dragon? Or is it something for Yang? It doesn't really... look like anything."

Rose doesn't answer for a moment, too absorbed in her work and Blake is about to ask it again when she sets the block aside and looks up at their waiting faces. "No this is something completely new. I don't have a weapon suitable for fighting... well not Grimm. So I'm going to be working on an idea I had for it over the next few months."

"But what _is_ it?"

Rose sighed and flipped through her notebook and held up a page for them to look at. It was covered in detailed diagrams of myrtenaster along with little caricatures of Rose holding a similar weapon for size comparisons. Unlike the original however, the sketched version lacked the revolver barrel and had lines dawn across the blade at regular intervals.

"What are these extra details for?" Weiss asked. She leaned in close enough that her nose was almost scraping against the page.

"I'm going to try making sword that telescopes. Red is too big for me to use in tight spaces and using it against humans is dangerous because in order not to kill them I have to actually focus on fighting _worse_ and endanger myself."

"Wow. That's quite the goal."

Rose nodded and bit her tongue while looking back over the notes thoughtfully. "Yeah but I have been thinking on it a long time. Before my Uncle Qrow taught me the scythe he got me started on all sorts of weapons that are better fits for fighting people. I never took into account how unwieldy a scythe is when you don't want to cut things until I got into a fight before coming here."

"You got in a fight?" Both girls stared at Rose with obvious worry. Knowing their temperamental leader and the massive weight of deadly steel she carried around with her anyone who _did_ get in a fight was likely a complete moron.

And also probably died a horribly bloody death.

Likely with a lot of bloodcurdling screaming.

Rose narrowed her eyes and huffed in annoyance.

"I didn't start it, and nobody died! Did Yang really not tell you about this? I thought she would have brought it up before we were even on the same team or something. She kinda just... tells people things with no context."

Weiss and Blake shared a look and shrugged. "She said you got into Beacon early because one of the teachers saw you stop a criminal or something like that but she didn't go into more detail."

The red girl sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. Of all the times for her sister not to take the initiative and save her the effort of having to explain something, it was _this_? She had expected her to run her mouth about to to everyone in the school. _Especially_ their damned team!

Rose peached out of the corner of her eye and felt her stomach sink at the expectant looks on both teammates faces. Somehow Weiss's eyes had expanded to gargantuan size and were shimmering in the light like a puppy who needed a hug.

 _Is it too late to wake up Yang and make her do this?_ She grumbled to herself and tapped on both of the other girls practice bars.

"Okay I get it. I will explain while we work. So, stop... staring at me with those darn puppy dog eyes Weiss and WORK!" She bellowed the end and flopped into her chair to carve at her block.

"And no grabbing during the story. It's annoying."

* * *

Roses eye tracked the short grey cloaked girl she would later learn is a complete lunatic, and an annoyingly competent aura user, walk out the door with her purchase and turned back to the stack of magazines. It was getting late and she should probably be heading home soon. The ferries to patch leave every 30 minutes, except at nighttime like now where they left every 3 hours. If she missed this one she may as well get a room and stay overnight.

And getting a room would require her to talk to someone to get a room.

And spend money that could be spent on weapons.

And her dad would kill her.

Maybe.

Probably.

If Yang didn't do it first.

 _Maybe I should call them to let them know._

Her phone came out of her pocket just in time for her to see the dozens of missed messages from Yang and her father, and also witness the battery die and the screen shut off.

 _That's just fantastic._

Unable to call home and not knowing the time (and more importantly not willing to ask someone what the time was) Rose chose to do what any teenager would do.

Ignore the problem until it goes away or escalates!

So channeling her inner bratty 12 year old she put her headphones back on, picked up another magazine, and began got back to reading.

Long minutes pass, and minutes slowly turn into hours of wasting away the night reading about firing pins.

Just barely over the sounds of the blaring death metal trying its best to deafen her she hears a panicked shout.

 _Obviously, someone tripped on the front steps. Nothing for me to worry about._

More screaming and the sounds of glass shattering.

 _Poor guy dropped his antique vase. What will aunt Ethyl say when she finds out?_

A tap on her shoulder.

 _Fucking damnit. Just leave me alone._

She turned around and stared in surprise at the ridiculous outfit the source of the tapping was wearing. The idiot was dressed like some sort of shitty music video reject. Full suit with red shades and a red... cleaver? Machete?

Backscratcher?

"What do you want?" Rose asked tersely. She really did not want to get involved in anything that was going on.

But she wasn't just going to put up with bullshit either.

"Put your hands in the ai-" The stupid goons threat was interrupted by a boot impacting his face like a battering ram. He flew through the air like a fat seal falling off a cliff and slammed into the front wall beneath the windows with a bone shaking crunch.

 _It happens. Look it up._ Rose thought to no one in particular. _They are incredibly stupid crea-_

"Hey you!" Another similarly dressed moron turned the corner and whipped out another backscratcher.

He probably wanted to attack her. And most certainly intended to subdue her and rob her.

What he definitely did not want to happen was to catch both of Roses heavy booted feet in his face. He didn't even have time to yell out before the girls' momentum carried them both through the glass windows and into the vacant nighttime street.

Rose checked to make sure the goon was still breathing and turned to survey the store. Through the front door and now fashionable "accessory entrance" that was once a boring old window she could make out a half dozen more goons and a fancy dressed hipster with way too much eyeliner who looked to be in charge.

"Well, get her!" The hipster said with a lazy wave of his hand.

 _Where do these people come from? Did a boy band turn to a life of crime or something?_

The rest of the fight was a blur as the red cloaked girl whipped out her scythe and went to town on the mostly uncoordinated mob. They weren't Grimm so she wasn't technically supposed to kill them so she had to swing her scythe backwards and her balance was entirely wrong.

But they were just goons, so despite a few close calls she made it through unfazed and in just a few moments all the extras were lying unconscious on the floor. They probably weren't dead.

Probably. The back end of a scythe hitting your head still has a lot of force after all.

All that was left was the white jacketed and orange haired hipster who chose the lull in the fighting to swagger out of the store briefcase in hand.

"Well Red, this has been fun but I have a flight to catch."

And off he went!

But Rose really did not want to follow him.

 _Can I just let him go? I already beat up the morons... no one can blame me for not pursuing a dangerous criminal... who may go on to murder people... when I could have stopped him..._

 _Fucking damnit._

She broke out of her internal argument just in time to see the man go up a conveniently placed ladder and onto a nearby buildings roof.

Red rose petals swirled around the girl as she pulled aura from her body and activated her semblance for the first time that night. She bent her knees ever so slightly and leaped into the air and onto the roof with plenty of room to spare.

"That went better than practice." She absentmindedly mumbled to herself before continuing after the criminal. Qrow made her practice with jumping onto buildings about a year ago. He said that people who can't fly on command need to be aware of escape routes at all times. Rose knew the man meant well, but she could only stand undershooting a roof and catching It with her ankles so she got thrown face first into the roof so many times before she threatened to kill him if he didn't let her stop.

His shit eating grin didn't help things either.

"Oh, you're still here? Well. I don't have time to play Red, be a dear and shove off will you?"

"Could you please surrender?" Rose responded immediately in a bored, uninterested tone, "I don't want to be the only person conscious to explain to the police what happened."

The hipster, who as Rose looked closer she felt like she could just _almost_ recognize, didn't expect her to just _ask_ him to surrender. It was so shocking to him he actually started laughing hard enough that he had to clutch his stomach and pant for air.

"Hahaha! Oh *cough* I didn't expect that. But sorry to say Red but you will have to explain what happened by yourself, my ride is here."

 _Say what?_

The sound of wind buffeting approached rapidly and a black painted bullhead swooped down to hover above the pumpkin haired idiot.

"Oh no you fucking don't!" Rose yelled. She blasted forward with all the force she could muster, barely visible as a red streak shooting towards the vehicle. Just as she was about to impact it with her scythe a wall of black... something formed in front of her. Whatever the material was it was formed of dozens of small layers that shattered one by one under her assault, each slowing her down drastically until the combined efforts shaved off all of her momentum leaving her to fall back to the roof.

"Goodbye Red, it was fun!" The criminal shouted from the side of the bullhead. He pulled a red dust crystal out of his pocket and gave it a light toss.

 _Did he forget to activate it?_

He lifted his cane an pointed it at the crystal.

 _GAH! IT'S A GUN!_

Rose had a lot of experience with red dust. A lot of it pertaining to accidentally blowing the stuff up, so she knew a crystal of that size could destroy the entire building she was on if it was set off. Even with her semblance she wouldn't be able to get far enough away to guarantee her safety.

So instead she swung Red Dragon like a golf club and sent the crystal flying through the air back at the escaping bullhead.

Unfortunately, her reflection was a little too good, and it went right into the path of the hipsters flare. The night sky lit up in the oddly iridescent colors of a pure dust explosions. A myriad of colors from red to violet devouring the air between the two combatants.

A little too close though.

The wall of flame shot towards Rose and the bullhead. The mystery black substance interrupted the path of the flame upwards towards the escaping villains, but Rose had no such protection. She spun her body around to launch herself away.

"VUUUUUUM!" A flash of white light and a deep tone rang out, shaking the entire building she stood on. The fire was washed away by the burst of light. The overwhelming heat, even without the flames almost immediately diminished as well.

 _I'm not dead? IM NOT DEAD! HURRAAAAY!_

Rose quickly pat herself down for burns. But no. She was definitely unharmed.

 _Why am I not d- Oh._

Just to the side of the girl was a new arrival, the incredibly tall blond soon to be Roses combat instructor, Glynda Goodwitch.

And boy, she looked pissed.

Glynda waved her hands and sent a shower of random crap flying at the bullhead. Most were caught by the strange shattering substance, but enough got through that the ship was in dangerous risk of tilting over and falling onto the pair.

 _Please don't tip the massive flying tank on us._

The next attack from Glynda rained a shower of explosions on the ship from above, sending it shaking around and dragging it closer and closer to the ground. Through the fron window of the ship Rose could just barely make out two eyes shining with an ethereal light.

 _What kind of semblance is that?_

The glowing eyes flared with an incredible intensity. Something about it put a heavy weight in Roses chest. She didn't have time to think about the odd feeling though, whatever the odd eyed stranger was doing caused the floor beneath her to glow with an eerie light.

That was probably a bad sign.

The light flared beneath Rose and Glynda and they both threw themselves off the roof just into time to evade the entire thing busting into flames.

Rose settled on the ground happy to be away from the fighting and brushed the dust and ash from her clothes. She checked her scroll, still dead, and other bits and bobs to make sure nothing fell out of her pockets.

"Ahem!"

Spinning around brought Rose face to face with the very upset Hunter who just saved her life.

She was not happy.

* * *

"And that's about it. After that she stuck me in an interrogation room for an hour before she and Ozpin interviewed me. That's where I met Professor Klara too. She was at the store beforehand and Miss Goodwitch dragged her back to the station." The girl shivered at the sudden chill running up her spine, "It was scary."

Rose held up her now finished bit of ceramic and turned it over in her had looking for imperfections. "If you have finished, we can go over flowing your aura through the material to harden and finish it."

Blake and Weiss both did... well...

Pretty damned horrible if Rose was being completely honest. Blake at least had _some_ vague idea of what she was doing. Weiss on the other hand was a lost cause entirely.

Blakes carving looked like a rough image of a sword. Lacking any since of symmetry and balance, but at least recognizable. Weiss on the other hand...

"Wize, why did you carve a boomerang? Didn't you want a rapier?"

* * *

 **Welcome to the bottom of the chapter!**

 **Pretty fun one to write today. I didn't particularly hit any major roadblocks while doing this one. Just kept getting distracted by Dark Souls Remastered. Invasions are so hype even if they dont have a tenth of the variety of Dark Souls 2.**

 **One of the main purposes of this chapter, other than to introduce Rose wanting to making a side weapon for fighting people, which will initially be like a combination of a telescoping baton and a rapier, was to actually tell Weiss and Blake how Rose got into Beacon. Ill be honest, i dont even know if in the show they ever even told them. I plan on basically having Rose get pissed off that Roman is still on the loose and deciding that team RWBy will but an end to his life of crime.**

 **Not literal life, just arrest him.**

 **Next chapter will... probably follow more events from the show.**

 **Or maybe it wont.**

 **Who knows?**

 **Well, yeah i know I should. But fuck that, i wanna enjoy the mystery too!**

 **Thanks for reading.**


	20. Declaration

Volume 1: Chapter 19: Declaration

* * *

" _Hey Raven." I pop my head down from the top bunk and look down at the sleepy girl "So... you and Tai huh?"_

 _The raven-haired girls face immediately goes bright red. The contrast between her normally gruff face permanently pinched in annoyance is so extreme I couldn't help bust break out into laughter._

* * *

Weekends were boring. Especially for Rose. Weekends meant no classes to distract her and no late-night training to take her mind off of her ever-growing backlog of homework she knew she was never going to finish.

She would like nothing more than to go to the training grounds and go batshit insane trying to murder more fake Grimm, or even just go into the woods to fight off some more actual Grimm but Professor Klara made it painfully obvious (very painfully to those who didn't listen) that all students were to have their auras at their maximum possible for their Monday classes.

Which for Rose meant no training for the weekend.

 _Damned slow aura generation. JNPR gets to train on weekends, and Yang could train during class and still technically be at 100%…_

It just wasn't fair!

So instead of enjoying herself, she was forced to "Relax" and hang out with the rest of her team in the group space on their dorms floor. It was a fairly large room at the end of the hallway and was filled with everything you need to relax and waste some time with friends. A big ass tv, comfy chairs, a pool table, a fool kitchen filled to the brim with goodies, and every game console you could ever want.

Yang and Blake were enjoying the fully stocked kitchen. Weiss loved the game consoles and wouldn't shut up about some "Souls" thing whatever that meant.

Rose however was lying face down on a couch trying to teleport through time by force of will.

"Yaaaang... I'm soooo booooooored." She moaned into the soft couch cushions. It took all her will not to kick her feat like a child.

Her sister and Blake looked over from where they were trying their best to figure out how to de-bone a fish. It was their third attempt and Blake was slowly starting to look more manic as they threw out more and more destroyed fishies. Both their scrolls were open to separate video guides on doing the deed and somehow they both managed to absolutely demolish the fish time and time again.

Rose could not figure out why the two didn't just cook chicken like normal people.

"Well sis you could always help us with the fish, or play games with Weiss, or do the homework you have been pretending to do and doing a poor job of lying to me about finishing."

Roses breath hitched at her sisters' cold tone. "Ermm... Noticed, that did you?"

"You are about as good at lying as you are at grinding dust in class."

Ouch, that stung. Mostly because Rose currently had the worst grade of the entire school in Dust Studies. If it wasn't for Weiss basically knowing everything there is to know about dust she would likely have a zero percent in the class.

As is she had a 50 percent, a remarkable, although ultimately useless, amount of improvement.

The three girls looked at Weiss and waited for the studious girl to remark on her partners lack of care, but the heiress instead was giggling manically and kicking someone off a ledge in her game.

"Weiss? Got anything to add?"

"Backstabs are bullshit." She responded without even looking away from her game. Six hours of playing today and she had yet to actually engage any of them in conversation.

Blake and Yang facepalmed, "Not... quite applicable but yes, yes they are."

*BEEP*

Rose shot to her feat, hair flying wildly around her, and pulled out her scroll. She set a web alert earlier in the month and had been waiting for it to finally give her some useful information.

"Get a text from dad, Rose?" asked Yang. She couldn't think of another reason Rose would be so excited about her scroll going off. Normally she would grab the device and chuck the noisemaker across the room in annoyance. It made getting her to respond to calls and texts incredibly annoying.

Although she did answer anytime uncle Qrow called, but he had his own ringtone of a bird cawing.

Electing not to answer her sister Rose tapped the flashing icon on her scroll and a news stream popped up.

" _Bzzzzt just in. The wanted criminal Roman Torchwick was allegedly seen last night robbing yet another Dust shop. No official word from the police yet as to casualties, but it is estimated he managed to take over a thousand pounds of Dust. This brings the grand total of his thefts this year to over 650million Lien. Police have so far not found any leads and none of the stolen dust has turned up so far which begs the question, what does a thief need so much dust for if he isn't going to sell it?"_

"Rose if you squeeze the scroll any tighter you're going to break it. Professor Klara will kill you if you break a fifth one."

The red cloaked girl loosened her grip and let the scroll fall onto her lap. All month she kept thinking back to the night she fought Torchwick. And more importantly to her, failed to pound that stupid smirk off of his face and into the floor.

"I want to catch him." She mumbled mostly to herself.

Weiss finished cackling maniacally at her game and looked over to their leader.

"What was that?"

Rose slid to her feat, scroll falling forgotten onto the floor. She clenched a fist and glared angrily at it.

"Team RWBY. We are going to catch Roman Torchwick."

Her three teammates shared a surprised look, but they all nodded their ascent.

"And then I am going to kick him in the balls."

* * *

 **Welcome to the bottom!**

 **Simple short chapter. Meant to make it longer but i couldn't really think of anything to bulk it up. Got quiiiiite a bit distracted with my new story so just bunced this one out so I am moving forward instead of just putting off writing it forever hahaha.**

 **So this chapter pretty much sets up that Volume 1 and most of the first Year of their schooling will be stopping Torchwick. Their will be some scenes in common with the show, but most things will be spread out alot more and changed quite significantly.**

 **I have quite a few ideas for Romans little escapades, but not 100% on which ones i will go with yet.**

 **Regardless, next chap will prolly be either more classes, a Jaune/Pyrrha focussed chapter, or some random nonsense i come up with the moment I sit down to write like i normally do.**

 **Someday i will keep to a outline. Someday.**

 **But sure as fuck wont be today.**


End file.
